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Zachary Pennington is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia. He received his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2018, where he studied under Michael Fanselow, focusing on the influence of stress and opioid use. Afterward, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the laboratory of Denise Cai, where he employed novel imaging technologies to advance the understanding of stress vulnerability. Dr. Pennington's research aims to uncover how negative emotions are represented within brain circuitry and how these circuits can be modified through experience. His long-term goal is to harness these discoveries to develop innovative treatments for anxiety disorders and other mental health conditions. His lab utilizes a diverse set of methodologies, including ongoing neuronal activity recording in freely behaving animals, discrete manipulation of cell populations, and behavioral tagging of specific neuron activations. He is also involved in open-source software and hardware projects to promote scientific discovery.
Offers course-only and thesis routes. Focus areas include philosophy of science, mind, ethics, and Asian philosophy.