Lab Members

PI

Dr. Kevin Coffey is a behavioral neuroscientist who earned his PhD from Rutgers University and completed a postdoc in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at the University of Washington. Dr. Coffey’s primary focus is studying the neurobiological consequences and predictors of chronic fentanyl use. To accomplish this, the lab utilizes cutting-edge in-vivo optical neuroscience tools (photometry, optogenetics, miniscopes) along with a newly developed oral-fentanyl self-administration model for rats and mice. He is also the lead developer for DeepSqueak, a popular software package for bioacoustics analysis that integrates machine-vision algorithms with an intuitive graphical interface to accelerate animal communication research.

Research Technician and Lab Manager

William Nickelson is a graduate of Gonzaga University with bachelor’s degrees in biology, psychology, and religious studies, and is a research technician and lab manager for the Coffey Lab. In addition to administrative duties, William is involved throughout the lab’s research projects, including stereotaxic surgery, animal behavior, histology, and data analysis. His primary interest in the lab is evaluating the effects of opioid use on value based decision-making.

Undergraduate

Neethi is studying neuroscience at the University of Washington. She is broadly interested in psychiatry and neurology.

Sierra is a graduate of the University of Washington Graduate Program in Neuroscience, where she studied human retinal physiology and color vision in the lab of Dr. Ram Sabesan developing computational methods to characterize spatial patterning of the spectral cone types. Prior, she worked as a technician in the lab of Dr. Beth Buffalo studying macaque hippocampal physiology with respect to learning and memory. She is excited to dive into fentanyl use research with the Coffey Lab and is particularly interested in how circuit dynamics change as motivation for drug-seeking evolves with use.