Brief Biography
Dr. Crawley received her B.A. degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1976, where she studied catecholamines mediating isolation-induced aggression in male mice. Dr. Crawley did postdoctoral training at Yale University with James Maas and Robert Roth, investigating neuropharmacological activation of the locus coeruleus, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to measure catecholamine metabolites in brain and plasma of rats. In 1979 she came to the NIMH as a PRAT Fellow and studied anxiety-like behaviors in mice. Dr. Crawley spent several years at the Neurobiology Basic Research Program at DuPont before returning to NIMH in 1983 to create a rodent behavioral neuropharmacology laboratory. She served as Acting Deputy Scientific Director of NIMH (1993), President of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society (2000-2001), Organizer of the Summer Neuropeptide Conference (1993-98), and Editor of the journal Neuropeptides (1997-present). In 2005 Dr. Crawley was awarded the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, Marjorie A. Myers Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding scientific contributions to the field of behavioral neuroscience and the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society Fleur Strand Award for outstanding research on neuropeptides and behavior. Dr. Crawley`s laboratory is studying the role of the neuropeptide galanin in learning and memory, and its potential involvement in Alzheimers disease.