Our Team
Jenna McHenry, PhD
Principal Investigator
Dr. McHenry is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, and Neurobiology at Duke University. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Florida State University in 2013, where she studied neural mechanisms of social buffering and hormone-neurotransmitter interactions for social behavior in animals. As a postdoc, she trained at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill with Dr. Garret Stuber and David Rubinow, using advanced neuroscience technology to uncover hormone-regulated neural circuits for social reward. She also acquired translational training in autism and Women’s Mood Disorders. Dr. McHenry opened her lab in the Fall of 2018 and has established several research programs that use a diverse combination of modern state-of-the-art neuroscience techniques to understand social and emotional processing within the brain. One major research project is to define flexible neural circuits that bridge hypothalamic homeostatic control circuits and mesolimbic dopamine reward systems, to direct specific forms of social and motivated behavior. A second major research goal is to define distinct behavioral and neural features that underlie ‘social personality’ and specific types of motivated behavior across mammalian species. As a mentor, her goal is to empower scientists at every career stage in a supportive and inclusive atmosphere that appreciates each person's authentic self. The lab strives to maintain exceptional integrity throughout each step of the scientific process, with respect for self, others, and the human-animal interaction.
Hobbies and interests: Spending time with animals and in nature, cooking, yoga, and hiking.
Daniel Needs, PhD
Postdoctoral Associate
Daniel is a Postdoctoral Associate in the McHenry Lab. He received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University in 2022. His thesis focused on computational simulations and analysis of cardiac electrophysiology among disease states including atrial fibrillation. His current work in the lab is focused on developing automated analysis pipelines to extract nuanced features of behavioral and neural imaging datasets. Pipelines include classifiers used to uncover social phenotypes, predictive models of various social and non-social behaviors, and stochastic models of time-related features of social homeostatic state control. In addition, Daniel oversees a computational team of students aimed at using and optimizing machine-learning models for multi-animal social behavior tracking. In the lab, Daniel engineers custom hardware and software for novel behavioral and imaging rigs to extract quantitative features of precise motivated behaviors.
Hobbies and interests: playing music, running, reading, and video games.
Morgan Ferrans, BS
Graduate Student
Morgan is a graduate student in the Cognitive Neuroscience Admitting PhD Program, in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University. She received her B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Chemistry from Duke University. Prior to graduate school, Morgan worked on infant language development with Dr. Makeba Wilbourn and service dog puppy behavioral and cognitive development with Dr. Brian Hare. Morgan entered the Duke Cognitive Neuroscience Admitting Program in 2020 and is conducting her Ph.D. graduate studies in collaborative work between the McHenry Lab and the Duke Canine Cognition Center, led by Dr. Brian Hare. Her research studies focus on understanding dog physiology, temperament, and social behavior across the lifespan. Her focus with the McHenry Lab is to establish social and motivated behavior assays in dogs, translated from mouse models, in order to make comparisons within and across species. Notably, she is testing service dog puppies and diverse adult dog breeds on individual differences in distinct forms of social and motivated behavior, including human-dog, dog-dog, and dog-food preferences that represent ‘personality’. Within this context, she is adapting state-of-the-art animal tracking methods to extract rich quantitative behavioral datasets. Ultimately, these studies will provide unique insights to maximize favorable outcomes and selection criteria for service dogs. Outside of the lab, Morgan volunteers to raise and train service dogs for Canine Companions and currently raising a pup named Gilda who goes everywhere she goes!
Hobbies and interests: Hiking, baking, training service dogs, Duke basketball!
Olivia Timmermans, BA
Graduate Student
Erika Blaine
Associate in Research
Olivia is a graduate student in the Psychology & Neuroscience department, in the Systems and Integrative Neuroscience program. She received her BA in neuroscience from Princeton University in 2022, with a minor in cognitive science. At Princeton, she worked with Dr. Annegret Falkner to explore the behavioral and neural mechanisms that underlie dominance and social hierarchies in groups of mice. Broadly, she is interested in the development and expression of diverse social behaviors, and is excited to continue exploring this topic in the McHenry Lab. She plans to investigate the behavioral and neural correlates that underlie the formation of different kinds of social relationships and personality phenotypes in mice. She will use a variety of techniques to do so, including multi-animal pose-tracking, in vivo neural imaging, and numerous behavioral assays.
Hobbies and interests: reading, photography, and spending lots of time outside
Erika is a research tech for the McHenry lab at Duke University. She received her B.S. in Neuroscience from Brigham Young University in April of 2024. At BYU, she worked with Dr. Brock Kirwan to study the brain mechanisms that influence memory and decision making via fMRI. As a Simons SURFiN undergraduate Fellow, she also worked with Dr. Nicholas Frost at the University of Utah. Here, Erika studied cortical microcircuits involved with atypical social behavior in mouse models of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the McHenry lab, Erika is assisting with several ongoing studies, including one to understand how social circuits transform over the course of development, from adolescence to adulthood in ASD mouse models. In the future, Erika plans to pursue a PhD in Neurobiology and refine her current research interests in social behavior, developmental disorders, and addiction behaviors.
Hobbies and interests: rock climbing, hiking, film photography, and watching movies.
Maria Izzi
Undergraduate Researcher
Maria is pursuing her undergraduate studies at Duke University with a planned concentration in computer science, statistics, and math, Class of 2024. In her research, she is interested in the integration of neuroscience, computer vision and machine learning. Outside of the lab, Maria contributed to a diverse set of research projects, including mathematical models of cancer mutational signatures and classing COVID lung CT scans. In the lab, Maria is working with our postdocs and computational team to optimize machine-learning methods for multi-animal pose tracking. This research provides a rich quantitative analysis of complex and nuanced natural group social interactions in mice. Maria has been working on identifying the best parameters for efficiency and accuracy of the multi-animal tracking systems that are used in a variety of social behavior experiments.
Hobbies and interests: going to the gym, 5-minute recipes, and recently into crocheting!
2023 Duke Muser - Animal Behavior Computational Team
The McHenry Lab has launched an undergraduate research team project through Duke Muser (https://muser.duke.edu). This platform aims to create a more inclusive, equitable, and accessible means for undergraduates to enter academic research. Dr. Daniel Needs is the primary mentor for this project development. This project leverages state-of-the-art technology to extract neural and behavioral recordings of animals engaging in ethnologically relevant social and non-social motivated behaviors. The Muser team uses a combination of advanced machine-learning platforms that utilize multi-animal pose tracking to extract the key and nuanced features of individual, dynamic, and group interactions in animals over chronic time periods. The team is working to optimize various models to increase the speed and accuracy of multi-animal tracking. This team-based approach is advancing quantitative models of social group dynamics. If you are interested in joining the team, be on the lookout for our Duke Muser posting.
Spring 2023: Danny Badia, Sian Wang, Chris-Ann Bennett, Aiden Lo. Spring 2023 team shown in photo above.
Summer 2023: Koji Bilbao, Aniekanabasi Eno-Ekefre, Luke Herinquez, Francesa Silva, Joseph Zhang.
Fall 2023: Sofia DeAngelo, Eric Han, Will McIntosh, Carly Silverstein.
Spring 2024: Koji Bilbao,Will McIntosh, Sofia DeAngelo, Harry Wang, Alice Shin, Nam Ho, Akuorkor Allotey, Lade Laniyan, Aayush Kashyap, Maria Izzi, Joseph Zhang
Four Legged Contributors
Polar
Goose
Lab Alumni
Postdocs:
Nicholas Lusk, PhD, Post-doctoral Associate in the McHenry Lab, now a Data Scientist, Specialized Microscopy, Allen Brain Institute, Seattle WA.
Grad Students:
Emily Alway, BS, Spring 2022 Rotation, Duke Medical Scientist MD/PhD Program
Tierney Daw, BS, Fall 2021 Rotation, Duke Neurobiology PhD Program
Fernando Santos Valencia, BS, Spring 2021 Rotation, Duke Neurobiology PhD Program
Liz O’Gorman, Summer 2019 Rotation, Duke Neurobiology PhD Program
Lab Techs:
Neha Vyas, BS, Associate in Research in the McHenry Lab, pursing Medical School.
Annika Sharma, BS, Associate in Research in the McHenry Lab, now a graduate student in a PhD Program in Neurobiology, at the University of Chicago.
Undergraduates Research Assistants:
Brinda Raghavendra, BS, Undergraduate Research Fellow in the McHenry lab, pursing medical school.
Nasia Meimeteas, Undergraduate Research Assistant in the McHenry lab, pursing a BS degree.
Devon Dietrich, Undergraduate Research Fellow in the McHenry Lab, now a Postbaccalaureate in the Intramural Research Program at the Natural Institute of Health, Bethesda Campus.
Noah Miller, Undergraduate Research Assistant, now in a PhD Neurobiology Program, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Undergraduates Research Muser Project - Computational Team:
Spring 2023 Muser Team: Danny Badia, Sian Wang, Chris-Ann Bennett, Aiden Lo.