Dr. Catherine Jensen Peña

Biography

Catherine Jensen Peña is an Assistant Professor at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. Her research focuses on neurodevelopment, stress, and transcriptomic regulation, investigating the neurobiological mechanisms through which early environmental experiences are encoded and maintained into adulthood, impacting behavior over the long term. She is particularly interested in how early life stress increases the risk of depression, addiction, and psychiatric syndromes. Her translational research is driven by robust clinical findings that indicate that forms of early life stress, such as child maltreatment, significantly elevate lifetime risks of depression, mood disorders, anxiety, and substance use disorders by 2-4 times. Studies conducted in both humans and animals suggest that early life stress primes individuals to be more sensitive to stressors encountered later in life. To understand the neurobiological mechanisms underlying this latent behavioral vulnerability, she integrates various technical approaches, including rodent behavior, RNA and chromatin sequencing, bioinformatic analysis, cell-specific gene manipulation, and high-resolution imaging. Ultimately, her goal is to apply this knowledge toward the development of innovative therapies for individuals who have experienced childhood stress and trauma.

Research Interests