THE McCARTHY LAB
Investigating Sex Differences in the Developing Brain
Margaret M. McCarthy,
PhD
Margaret (Peg) McCarthy received a PhD from the Institute of Animal Behavior at Rutgers University, Newark NJ, postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University and was a National Research Council Fellow at NIAAA before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1993. She was a Professor in the Department of Physiology before becoming the Chair of the Department of Pharmacology in 2011. McCarthy has a long-standing interest in the cellular mechanisms establishing sex differences in the brain. She uses a combined behavioral and mechanistic approach in the laboratory rat to understand both normal brain development and how these processes might go selectively awry in males versus females. She is the former President of Organization for the Study of Sex Differences and currently serves as Chair for the Board of Scientific Councilors of NIMH, an Associate Editor at Hormones and Behavior and on the Advisory Board of eNeuro. Dr. McCarthy is a Member of the Dana Alliance on Brain Research and Fellow for AAAS. She was awarded the University of Maryland Researcher of the Year and Champion of Excellence awards in 2015 and 2017, respectfully. She has published over 200 peer-reviewed manuscripts and her work has been cited close to 10,000 times. In 2019, McCarthy was recognized for all of her accomplishments over her 25 year career with the distinguished James and Carolyn Frenkil Dean's Professorship. In 2023, she became the founding director of the University of Maryland Medicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery (UM-MIND). In October of 2024, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in recognition of her novel research into the role of the immune system on brain development, particularly sex differences in behavior and neuroanatomy.
Anna Maximova
MD/PhD Candidate
4th Year, Program in Neuroscience
Anna received her B.S. in Neuroscience from the College of William and Mary in 2017. She is broadly interested in the intersection of neuroscience and the immune system, especially during sensitive periods in early life when immune cells can both guide normal brain development and lead to deleterious neurological consequences. She is currently studying the role of a unique population of developmentally-restricted mast cells in guiding normal hippocampal function, which could increase our understanding of the novel neuroimmune interactions in neurodevelopment.
Kaliroi "Kali" Engel
PhD Candidate
3rd year, Program in Neuroscience
Kali received her B.S. in Neuroscience with a dual minor in Psychology and Law from Virginia Tech in 2018. She is interested in neurodevelopmental neuroimmunology.
Christie Dionisos
PhD Candiate
3rd year, Program in Neuroscience
Christie graduated from Union College in Schenectady, NY in 2019, receiving a BS in Neuroscience and a BA in Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies. Her interests in the McCarthy Lab include sex differences in neurodevelopment, hormone specific effects, and impacts of perinatal THC exposure on the developing brain.
Aidan Pham
PhD Candidate
3rd year, Program in Neuroscience
Aidan received his B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of California Irvine in 2019. He is interested in investigating the effects of THC exposure at varying time points across development. Aidan is currently working on morphologically characterizing microglia after THC exposure and determining how changes in microglia effect the formation of the social behavior network, as well as social play later in life.
Andrew Allee
PhD Candidate
3rd year, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Andrew attended Lincoln University, Missouri & graduated in 2019 with a B.S. in biology and a double minor in chemistry and psychology. Prior to graduate school, he worked as a Project Lead at Eurofins Biopharma Product Testing, where as a project manager he worked on treatments CAR-T cell therapies and oligonucleotide-driven treatments for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. His research interests in the lab include NK cell biology, the function of brain-resident immune cells and their impact on neurodevelopment and behavior, and neuroimmunology broadly.
Neema Moin Afshar
MD/PhD Candidate
2nd year, Program in Neuroscience
Neema received his B.S. in neuroscience from the University of Minnesota in 2018. His research is focused on determining THC's impact on the developing brain as well as play behavior.
Matthew Bruce
Postdoctoral Fellow
Matt hails from Pennsylvania, where he received his B.S. in Neuroscience in 2017 from Temple University. Based on an interest in CNS neuroimmune signaling cultivated during his undergraduate training, Matt then chose to pursue his Ph.D. in Immunology in the lab of Dr. Judy Van de Water at the University of California, Davis to develop a truly interdisciplinary skillset. There he studied the impact of ASD-specific maternal autoantibodies in CNS development through the use of preclinical modeling. Currently, in the McCarthy Lab, Matt is using the rat as a model system to understand the influence of mast cells and other leukocytes on neonatal brain development, with particular focus on innate-like lymphocytes.
Gabrielle Voithofer
MD/PhD Student
1st year, Program in Neuroscience
Gabrielle attended Salisbury University on the eastern shore of Maryland and completed her degrees in Biology (B.S.) and Psychology (B.A.). She is interested in studying the physiology of sex differences in typical neurodevelopment and in the setting of neurological disease. Her current work in the McCarthy lab is focused on studying the neural circuitry underlying social play behavior.
Wren Nielson
Laboratory Technician
Wren received their B.S. in Neuroscience with a Cognitive Neuroscience specialization from the University of South Dakota in December 2021 before arriving at UMB in spring 2022. They manage the lab's rat and mouse colonies and provide scientific and administrative support to lab personnel. They also research the impact of social play during adolescence on aggression and pro-social behavior in adulthood.
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Lucy Sirrs
Laboratory Technician
Lucy received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience with a minor in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Princeton University in 2023. She conducted her senior thesis research in Dr. Annegret Falkner’s lab, using unsupervised deep learning approaches to understand how sex hormones shape social behavior in male and female mice. As a tech in the McCarthy Lab, she hopes to continue applying computer vision technology to the study of the neural underpinnings of sex differences in the context of play behavior.
Current Members
The Lab Outside of the Lab:
The McCarthy Lab is highly social and supportive of its members and the broader UMB community. We regularly attend events together such as Orioles baseball games, trivia nights, holidays, birthdays, and movie nights!
McCarthy Lab Alumni
Graduate Student Trainees
Sydney Ashton, PhD 2024 - "A 'personality test' for rats reveals subtle but distinct effects of sex and early life inflammation on brain and behavior"
Alexa Ciesinski Blanchard, PhD 2023 - "Mast Cell Modulation of the Developing Hippocampus"
Ashley Marquardt, PhD 2023- "Defining the Causes and Consequences of Sex Differences in Juvenile Rat Social Play". Current position, Program Manager, University of Maryland Medicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery (UM-MIND).
Kathy Kight, PhD 2019 - "Defining the Mechanisms That Mediate Sexual Differentiation of the Developing Hippocampus"
Jonathan van Ryzin, PhD 2018 – “Microglia mediated sexual differentiation of the amygdala”.
Sarah Stockman, PhD 2017 – “Epigenetic contributions to different developmental trajectories of male and female hippocampus."
Jessica Hoffman, PhD 2013 – “A sensitive period in cerebellar development defined by PGE2 and estradiol production.”
Bridget Nugent, PhD 2012 – “Effect of DNA methyltransferase activity on sexual differentiation of the rodent brain.”
Christopher L. Wright, PhD 2009 – “Identification of the prostaglandin E2 receptors mediating the neonatal organization of male sexual behavior and neuroanatomical correlates."
Shannon S. Dean, MD/PhD 2009 – “Regulation of cerebellar estradiol synthesis and Purkinje cell morphology by prostaglandins: Implications for neurodevelopmental disease."
Jaclyn M. Schwartz, PhD 2008 – “A critical role for glutamate in the organizational effects of estradiol on the developing hypothalamus”
Genell Hilton, RN. PhD 2005 - "Sex differences in perinatal brain damage: A role for estradiol modulation of kainic acid induced excitotoxicity."
Stuart Amateau, MD, PhD 2003 – “Estradiol-induced masculinization of the developing preoptic area: Evidence from form to function”
Micah S. Sickel, MD, PhD 2003 – “Involvement of the calcium binding protein, calbindin D-28K, in sexually dimorphic processes of the developing brain”
Jessica A. Mong, PhD, 2000 – “Steroid mediated astrocyte differentiation in the developing hypothalamus: Implications for sexually dimorphic synaptic patterning”
Aline M. Davis, PhD, 1998 - “The neonatal GABAergic system as a mediator of sexual differentiation of the rat brain”
Postdoctoral Trainees
Dr. Miguel Perez-Pouchoulen, Department of Pharmacology 2018-2023
Dr. Jonathan VanRyzin, Department of Pharmacology 2018-2022
Dr. Amanda Holley, Department of Pharmacology 2017-2020
Dr. Pedro Paredes Ramos*, Department of Pharmacology, 2013 – 2014
Dr. Lidia Fuenzalida*, Department of Pharmacology, 2013 –2014
Dr. Katherine Argue, Department of Pharmacology, 2012 – 2017
Dr. Christopher L. Wright, JD, PhD, Department of Pharmacology, 2011 – 2017
Dr. J. Michael Bowers*, Department of Pharmacology, 2008 – 2015
Dr. Nina Banerjee, Department of Physiology, 2010 – 2011
Dr. Kathryn Lenz, Department of Physiology, 2009 – 2013
Dr. Jaylyn Waddell, Department of Physiology, 2008 – 2010
Dr. Shu-Ling Liang, Department of Physiology, 2007 – 2009
Dr. Desiree Krebs-Kraft, Department of Physiology, 2006 – 2010
Dr. Christian Reich, Department of Physiology, 2005 - 2006
Dr. Susan Zup, Department of Physiology, 2005 – 2008
Dr. Debra Speert, Department of Physiology, 2003 - 2006
Dr. Anne Konkle, Department of Physiology, 2003 – 2007
Dr. Brigitte Todd, Department of Physiology, 2002 – 2004
Dr. Joseph Nunez*, Department of Physiology, 2000 – 2004
Dr. Tara Perrot-Sinal, Department of Physiology, 1998 – 2001
Dr. Anthony Auger, Department of Physiology, 1998 – 2001