NSF Awards University of Richmond Professor $273,951 for Neuroscience Equipment
August 31, 2006
The National Science Foundation has awarded Craig H. Kinsley, professor of neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at University of Richmond, a grant of $273,951 to purchase a suite of microscopy and behavioral neuroscience equipment.
The equipment will allow Kinsley and his students to conduct more sophisticated studies using cutting-edge microscopy techniques and devices and obtain more reliable behavioral and neural data. The new equipment also will add to the existing set of high-end apparatus in the Gottwald Center for the Sciences, thereby increasing both the number and quality of studies performed and the number of undergraduate and master’s level students who can get involved in their own hands-on, original research.
“This grant recognizes the talent and hard work of all my students, as it is largely through their efforts that good research in my lab gets done. This is a real team effort,” said Kinsley.
For 16 years, Kinsley has led a collaborative research program studying changes in the neural structures of maternal rats. The new equipment will allow Kinsley and his group to make further advances in understanding the development of the maternal and paternal brain. By using the equipment, Kinsley said his students “can embark on questions they could only previously imagine.”
The equipment also will be used by collaborators and students from Virginia Union University, the University of Sao Paulo, Dickinson College and Randolph-Macon College, where Kinsley’s long-time collaborator Kelly Lambert and her students work with Richmond students on complementary research into mechanisms of the parental brain.
Since Kinsley’s arrival at Richmond in 1989, he and his students have presented hour-long “Neuroscience Road Shows” to nearly 7,000 elementary, middle and high school students in the Richmond area to interest them in the field of neuroscience. The new equipment will provide improved images for these demonstrations as well as a wider range of relevant behavioral neuroscience studies.
“In all, the new equipment will translate into more opportunities for more curious and committed students from the University of Richmond and its affiliates,” said Kinsley.