Kavli ScholarCourtney R. McDermott
Courtney R. McDermott investigates how maternal presence during early-life stress shapes the development and intergenerational transmission of olfactory sensory neuron adaptations in neonatal mice. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Bianca Jones Marlin’s laboratory at the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University. Courtney earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience & Cell Biology from Rutgers University, where she trained under Drs. Emanuel DiCicco-Bloom and Martin Blaser.
During her doctoral studies, Courtney designed and conducted a preclinical study modeling therapeutic antibiotic exposures in human infants to elucidate how alterations in the gut microbiome impact hippocampal development and behavior, with a focus on host genotype interactions influencing susceptibility.
Throughout her graduate training at Rutgers, she was honored with several prestigious awards, including the NIH F99/K00 D-SPAN Award, the New Jersey Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism Predoctoral Award, and the Association for Clinical and Translational Sciences Outstanding Predoctoral Scholar Award.