Updated September 2020 Kurt Michael Fraser, MA 224 Dunning Hall, 3400 N Charles St Cell: Baltimore, MD 21218 Email:
[email protected] CURRENT POSITION Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD Expected March 2021 PhD Candidate in Psychological & Brain Sciences (Biopsychology) Supervisor: Patricia H. Janak, PhD Dissertation Topic: Setting the Occasion for Reward-seeking in Brain and Behavior EDUCATION Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 2017 MA in Psychological & Brain Sciences (Biopsychology) Supervisor: Patricia H. Janak, PhD Master’s Thesis: Dorsal and Ventral Striatal Systems in the Attribution of Incentive Salience to Reward-Paired Cues University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 2015 BS in Neuroscience with High Honors & Distinction Supervisor: Shelly B. Flagel, PhD Thesis: Contributions of Dopamine D2 and D3 Receptors to Pavlovian Conditioned Approach RESEARCH INTERESTS Neurobiological mechanisms of cue-triggered motivated behavior: • How are reward learning and conditioned motivation separable in both behavior and neurobiology? • What neural circuits underlie the attribution of conditioned motivation to reward-paired cues? • How is ambiguity about the motivational value of conditioned cues in the environment resolved to produce reward-seeking? • What is the content of learning? • How do neural circuits supporting adaptive reward-seeking go awry in mental health disorders such as alcohol abuse and addiction? RESEARCH SUPPORT AND FELLOWSHIPS NIH National Research Service Award Predoctoral Fellowship (F31 DA046136) 2019-present The role of the basolateral amygdala in occasion setting MANUSCRIPTS IN PREPARATION Fraser KM, Collins V, Pat F, Saunders BT, & Janak PH. Hierarchical control of mesolimbic dopamine and striatal encoding of reward-paired cues governs flexible behavioral responding. Fraser KM, Kim TH, Padovan-Hernandez Y, Chen B, Pat F, Ottenheimer DJ, & Janak PH.