NIH FIRST Personnel
Francesca Filbey
MPI/Administrative Core
Dr. Filbey serves as Senior Associate Provost for Faculty Success at UT Dallas. She is also the Bert Moore Chair at the Center for Brain Health and is a professor in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas. Her research focuses on using multimodal brain imaging techniques to study addiction as a model for understanding reward system dysfunction in humans.
Theodore Price
Faculty Development Core
Dr. Price is a professor of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. He holds the Ashbel Smith Professorship and is the founding Director of the Center for Advanced Pain Studies. Dr. Price’s research focuses on how the nervous system’s adaptability affects the reception of pain-related information and how neural plasticity contributes significantly to chronic pain.
James Harrington
Evaluation Core
Dr. Harrington is an Associate Professor and Department Head of Public and Nonprofit Management in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas. His research interests encompass technology policy, education policy, performance management, policy analysis, and evaluation.
Stephen Spiro
Programmatic Resources
Dr. Spiro is Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is also a professor of biological sciences in the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at the University of Texas at Dallas. He holds the title of C.L. and Amelia A. Lundell Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences. Dr. Spiro’s current research focuses on bacterial responses to nitric oxide.
Michael Burton
STEM Pathway Development
Dr. Burton is an associate professor in the Department of Neuroscience at the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at UT Dallas. He holds the Eugene McDermott Distinguished Professorship and is a founding member of the Center for Advanced Brain Studies. Dr. Burton’s research interests include Molecular & Integrative Neuroscience, particularly focusing on how the immune and nervous systems communicate to influence pain and comorbidities like depression and anxiety.
Mehrdad Nourani
Promotion, Retention, and Advancement
Dr. Nourani serves as Senior Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs. He is a professor of electrical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dr. Nourani’s research interests include digital systems testability, SoC design and testing, design-for-test methodologies, test data compression, and fault modeling.
Meghna Sabharwal
Mentoring
Dr. Sabharwal is the Associate Provost for Faculty Success at UT Dallas and Professor of Public and Nonprofit Management in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences. Her research interests encompass human resource management, workforce diversity, job satisfaction and productivity, comparative human resources practices, and high-skilled migration.