Kate Wassum, Ph.D.

Kate Wassum, Ph.D.


Kate Wassum, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology. Her laboratory is aimed broadly at exposing the psychological processes and neural mechanisms that underlie appetitive associative learning, motivation, and decision-making. She uses a multidisciplinary approach combining behavioral procedures rooted in the rich traditions of learning theory with advanced systems neuroscience neural recording, interference, and/or molecular methods. All of her work is targeted at understanding the neural mechanisms underlying the maladaptive motivated behavior that marks diseases such as addiction, compulsive overeating, and depression.