Seeking answers on both U.S. coasts

As a behavioral neuroscientist, Robert C. Eaton, B.A. '87, M.A. '90 & Ph.D. '93, continues to draw on his experiences as a campus leader.

Now Senior Fellow at the University of Washington, Eaton says his undergraduate and graduate scientific training at UB prepared him well for his chosen career. "I had the distinct pleasure and honor of working with Dr. Elaine M. Hull in the Behavioral Neuroscience program in UB's Department of Psychology," he says. "As my doctoral mentor, Elaine encouraged me to take advantage of the many opportunities that UB had to offer. Without her constant support, my tenure at UB-and the beginning of my professional career-would not have been as successful."

While in graduate school, Eaton served as director of the Mark Diamond Research Fund and president of the Graduate Student Association. His postdoctoral training took place at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, where a three-year fellowship from the Aaron Diamond Foundation allowed him to study effects of maternal cocaine abuse on neurobehavioral development.

"This award permitted me to begin my research on the effects of gestational cocaine exposure on the developing nervous system and subsequent behaviors in the adult-exposed offspring. I continued my research as a visiting scholar in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and now further study the dopaminergic systems of the brain-which are vulnerable to cocaine exposure-in the UW Department of Rehabilitation Medicine."