Meet Dr. Jessica Bolton, a neuroscientist who works with Dr. Tallie Z. Baram in the Department of Anatomy & Neurobiology, School of Medicine. Jessica is particularly interested in developmental programming, or how early‐life events, such as stress, can program offspring for altered physiological or behavioral outcomes in adulthood, and the role microglia (the innate immune cells of the brain) play in this phenomenon. She believes the integration of neuroscience with immunology can show us how to improve health.
Jessica earned her B.S. from Southwestern University. While completing her Ph.D. at Duke University, she was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring. She received the Hewitt Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship to continue her research at UC Irvine. Jessica is an active member of the PDA and was the MC for our first UCI Postdoc Research Symposium last September. Next week, she will be traveling to the annual National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) meeting in San Francisco where she will meet Postdocs from all over the country. She will return with new ideas, and update us with a presentation this Spring.