© NOEL BESUZZIAs an undergraduate at Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, Christie Fowler became intrigued by neuropathological diseases such as severe schizophrenia. She majored in psychology, volunteered in a hospital psych ward, and worked at a facility for people with developmental disabilities. But it would be another decade before she circled back to neurobehavioral disorders to focus on addiction.
Following graduation, Fowler studied social behaviors in the newly established lab of Zuoxin Wang at Florida State University. Wang says he hesitated at first to take her on as his first graduate student because of her lack of basic neuroscience training, but “she was very determined, and that really impressed me.” Fowler looked at the effect of gonadal steroids on neurogenesis in prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), and found that exposures to different social situations can alter the amount of neurogenesis that occurs in the animals’ brains.1
Wang was impressed with her adaptability. When a lab manager left during Fowler’s fifth year, she took over daily operations. “She’s a very, very generous person,” Wang says.
In 2004, Fowler returned to Ohio as a postdoc to study ...
