Safar Center T32 Fellow Dr. Eleni Moschonas

Dr. Eleni Moschonas is a T32 postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Shaun Carlson at the University of Pittsburgh, where she investigates synaptic vulnerability and circuit-level disruptions following experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI). She earned her PhD in Neurobiology from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, where she conducted her graduate research at the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research under the mentorship of Dr. Anthony Kline and Dr. Corina Bondi. Her doctoral work focused on acetylcholine signaling in the prefrontal cortex during sustained attention following TBI, using real-time microdialysis to link neurochemical dysfunction with cognitive impairment. Dr. Moschonas is broadly interested in elucidating the molecular mechanisms that underlie synaptic and circuit-level dysfunction following brain injury, with the goal of informing targeted therapeutic strategies to improve cognitive outcomes. As part of her postdoctoral training, she aims to learn and apply in vivo neurochemical sampling, high-resolution imaging, and transcriptomic approaches to investigate how traumatic brain injury alters neurotransmitter systems, synaptic integrity, and neural connectivity.