Dr. Lori McMahon, having graduated summa cum laude from Southern Illinois University with a B.A. in biology/chemistry, earned a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from the Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Science at Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center. She completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. McMahon is a federally funded basic and translational neuroscience researcher and has been investigating various mechanisms that modulate synaptic function and plasticity at hippocampal synapses in rodent models over the lifespan in health and disease for over 20 years. As an expert synaptic physiologist, her lab uses electrophysiological approaches in acute brain slices, including extracellular dendritic field potential recordings, population spike recordings, and whole-cell voltage and current clamp recordings, to measure cell excitability, synaptic transmission, and plasticity. She has experience investigating synaptic transmission in all hippocampal subfields, many areas of the cortex, and dorsal striatum. Former dean of the Graduate School at University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), Dr. McMahon joined the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) as Vice President for Research in November 2021.