Kim Wiersielis

Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health

Summary Statement

Endocrine disrupting compounds and stress effects on cognition in mice.

Department

Biobehavioral Health - BBH

Education

Temple University, PhD, Neuroscience and Psychology
City University of New York, Hunter College, MA, Psychology
Rutgers University of Arts and Sciences, BA, Psychology
Middlesex County College, AA, Psychology

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Currently Accepting Graduate Students

kimberly.wiersielis@psu.edu

Office Address

Health and Human Development Building
Office: Room 034
Lab: Room 255

Research Interests

My research examines developmental exposure to endocrine disrupting compounds namely, organophosphate flame retardants and how they disrupt cognitive processing in the adult male and female offspring. In addition, it is well known that chronic stressful experiences can result in maladaptive affective states that impair learning and memory processes in both rodents and humans, often with a bias towards one particular sex. Thus, my central hypothesis is that perinatal organophosphate flame retardant exposure influences the developing cognitive and stress neurocircuitry, inducing long-lasting deficits in cognition and sensitize adults to chronic stress, with a greater impairment in one sex.