CEN welcomes three new faculty members

The Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences (CEN) extends a warm welcome to three new faculty members who have joined the center and the UNE community. Drs. Dan Selvage, Lei Lei, and Colin Willis all arrived in July and have been busy setting up their research laboratories and preparing for the fall semester.

CEN Director Edward Bilsky says, “each of these hires brings unique strengths and expertise with respect to the research and teaching missions of the university, and they will complement the work of the other 17 full-time and 8 adjunct CEN faculty”. Short descriptions on the background of each new faculty member are described below.

Dr. Dan Selvage joins the College of Pharmacy as an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. Dan was raised in Montana and earned a B.Sc. in Psychology from the University of Oregon. He subsequently earned a Masters of Philosophy degree from the University of Cambridge (UK) where his research focused on the neural regulation of stress-induced changes in circadian rhythms. His Doctoral work in Pharmacology was conducted at the University of Montana. His dissertation research investigated the central mechanisms involved in generating the hormonal surges that result in ovulation in the rat. Following the award of the Ph.D. degree, Dan completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Salk Institute within Dr. Catherine Rivier’s laboratory. The research at the Salk focused on a pituitary-independent, multi-synaptic, brain-testes neural pathway that inhibits testosterone production in the presence of specific stressors. Before joining UNE, Dan spent 5 years as an Assistant, and then Associate, Professor at Idaho State University. His laboratory is investigating brain-mediated sex-differences in hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (aka the ‘stress axis’) responses to alcohol administration. Dan brings a 5-year NIH R01 grant to UNE as he continues these studies in the College of Pharmacy.

The Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences has hired Dr. Lei Lei as a Developmental Biologist. Dr. Lei obtained his B.S. degree in Biochemistry in 1991 from Wuhan University in China. In 1998, he obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the Michigan State University, studying fundamentals of gene expression and regulation using an in vitro system. From 1999 to 2005, Lei conducted a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Developmental Neurobiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas (UTSW), supported in part by a F32 grant from the NINDS. After serving as an Instructor for one year at UTSW, he joined the faculty of the School of Life Sciences at the Arizona State University in August of 2006. His current research interests include developing transgenic mouse models for pain and other neurological disorders; studying molecular mechanisms that control the differentiation and diversification of different subtypes of nociceptive neurons; and advancing our understanding of stem cell biology in embryonic and adult brains.

Dr. Colin Willis is the most recent addition to the CEN, coming from the University of Arizona where he was a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology. Colin received a B.S. in Medical Sciences from the University of Bradford (UK) and a M.Sc. (Biochemistry) and Ph.D. (Neuropharmacology) from the University of London (UK). Dr. Willis has also completed post-doctoral training at the University of Montana and the University of Nottingham. His current research interests include studying cell/cell interactions at the neurovascular unit, In particular the role of astrocytes in modulating the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. In addition, he investigates the intracellular signaling mechanisms that regulate tight and adherens junctional proteins that modulate blood-brain barrier integrity. Dr. Willis brings a prestigious four-year American Heart Association award with him from the University of Arizona.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.