People

Meaghan Creed is from a very small town on Lake St. Clair in Ontario Canada. She earned her HBSc and PhD at the University of Toronto in Canada, then moved to the University of Geneva in Switzerland for post-doctoral training. Her research career has focused on understanding and optimizing deep brain stimulation (DBS) applied to the basal ganglia for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Dr. Lex Kravitz is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Washington University. His lab focuses on understanding basal ganglia function in health and disease, with a focus on the neural substrates of co-morbid eating and psychiatric disorders. He is also an active advocate for open source neuroscience.

He is a frequent collaborator with the Creed Lab, sharing some common lab space, technicians and lab manager.

Gargi did her Ph.D in Biochemistry from India and joined Washington University in St Louis to pursue her postdoctoral research. During postdoc, her research focused on studying the role of obesity in behavior and neurogenesis. After finishing her postdoc in February 2024 she joined Kravitz lab as a Staff Scientist. She will carry on her research on obesity and neuroinflammation and spend time managing the lab. During her spare time, she loves spending time with her family and puppy Stella.

Dr. Jeremy Thompson was born and raised in Houston, TX. He completed his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University and then obtained his MD and PhD degrees from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center where he studied plasticity in the amygdala associated with chronic pain. He came to Washington University as part of the Academic Scholars Advancement Program for residency training in Anesthesiology and fellowship training in Pain Management. He joined the Creed Lab in October 2022 for postdoctoral training utilizing electrophysiology and behavioral assays to study chronic pain-related mesocorticolimbic dopamine neuron plasticity. While not in lab, he enjoys running in
Forest Park, baking, and playing with his cat.

Dr. Robert (Bobby) Graham is a postdoctoral fellow from Chestertown, Maryland. He obtained his BS in Bioengineering from George Mason University and his MSE and PhD in Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Scott Lempka at the University of Michigan. His doctoral work applied computational methods to study the mechanisms of action of  neurostimulation therapies for chronic pain such as dorsal root ganglion stimulation and spinal cord stimulation, and how inherent biological variability can affect the neural response to these therapies. In the Creed lab, Bobby’s work combines electrophysiology, optogenetics, in vivo imaging, and behavioral methods to study the circuit and synaptic mechanisms of action of deep brain stimulation. The ultimate goal of this work is to provide a mechanistic rationale for the continued innovation of electrical stimulation therapies which treat neurological disorders. When not in the lab, Bobby is likely playing music or finding concerts, coffee shops, and pool tables around St. Louis.

Hailing from the east coast of Canada, Lisa received her PhD from Memorial University in Newfoundland where she studied the effect of diet-induced inflammation on hypothalamic cell activity. She joined the Creed lab as a postdoc in November 2023 and is leveraging her expertise in patch clamp electrophysiology, combined with transcriptomics, to investigate how distinct ventral pallidal circuits and cell types become altered during disease states. In her spare time, Lisa enjoys binge-watching tv shows (and is always accepting new recommendations!), reading, and sharing a coffee with friends.

​Jessica Tooley is from southern Wisconsin and attended St. Norbert College. She graduated with a BA in Psychology before joining the Creed Lab in June 2017 as a research technician. Jess has been performing behavioral assays with in vivo electrophysiology recordings and optogenetic manipulations.

Jess is now continuing in the lab as a neuroscience PhD student in the Washington University Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences. She is rapidly learning patch clamp electrophysiology, and is using her skillset to determine how synaptic adaptations in the ventral pallidum mediate compulsive drug seeking in the context of addiction.

Chang (Suzy) Xu grew up in a small city in Zhejiang Province, China, and has since embraced a global journey in neuroscience. She earned her BSc in Life Sciences from the University of Manchester and an MSc in Neuroscience from UCL. Before starting her PhD training in the Washington University in St. Louis, she worked as a research technician at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre in London. There, she investigated the neural mechanisms that support innate yet plastic social behaviours.Suzy is now a PhD student in the Creed lab. She is passionate about using her favourite neuroscience technique—patch-clamp electrophysiology—alongside animal behavior and modern circuit neuroscience approaches to dissect the roles of ventral pallidal circuits in substance use disorders.Outside the lab, Suzy enjoys sleeping, playing tennis and travelling.

Jeff graduated from the University of Kansas with a BS in biology in 2023. He then did a yearlong fellowship at the National Institutes of Health before joining the Creed lab in 2024. He is interested in research related to the effects of stress on motivation and decision-making.

Yu-Hsuan (Sharon) Chang is from Taipei, Taiwan and earned her Master’s degree in systems neuroscience from National Tsing Hua University. She joined the Creed Lab in March 2020. Sharon came to the lab with a background in behavioral neuroscience and has quickly become an expert at programming and designing specialized behavioral equipment to test novel hypotheses.

Her project investigates synaptic adaptations within the mesolimbic dopamine system induced by chronic pain and the relevance of these adaptations in drug addiction.

Dr. Yvan Vachez is from Grenoble, France, where he graduated with a license in biology, and a master’s degree in Neurosciences and Neurobiology. Yvan obtained his PhD from the Grenoble Institute for Neuroscience under the supervision of Dr. Sabrina Boulet and Dr. Sebastian Carnicella in 2018. In the Creed lab, Yvan studied self-administration of addictive drugs altered plasticity at synaptic outputs of the ventral pallidum to other basal ganglia nuclei.

When he’s not in the lab, Yvan loves watching movies and playing tennis.

Yvan is currently a junior group leader at the Université Grenoble.

Dr. Wambura Fobbs grew up in Virginia, but has since lived in many states as she pursued her academic training. She obtained a BS from Yale University and a PhD from University of Washington before embarking on postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, American University, and now Washington University. She has a long-standing interest in the neural and psychological basis of motivated behaviors, and she is eager to apply her background in behavioral analysis to ongoing projects in the Creed and Kravitz labs.

When not in lab, she runs after her dog, talks to her plants, works on fiber-related crafts, and learns more about new pedagogy practices and DEI initiatives. ​

Wambura is currently a tenure track assistant professor of neuroscience at Swarthmore College

Robbie grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, and earned his Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Notre Dame with experience in biomedical device design, machine learning, and embedded systems. He joined the Creed Lab in August of 2020 as a research technician. In the lab, he has been developing a novel device to perform wireless controlled deep brain stimulation in mice in order to investigate how this stimulation can be used for pain relief in animal models.

Outside of the lab, Robbie enjoys movies, piano, and local coffee shops. Robbie plans to attend medical school after his time in the Creed Lab.

Robbie is currently in medical school at Saint Louis University

Kelsey Person is joining the Creed Lab for the summer of 2021 through the Washington University ENDURE program (http://endure.wustl.edu/, @WUSTL_ENDURE).

Here, she will build on her existing experience studying ventral pallidal neuroanatomy to characterize functional anatomy of neurochemically-defined output pathways of the ventral pallidum (VP). She will apply viral-genetic tracing, electrophysiological and behavioral analysis to understand how discrete populations of neurons in the VP contribute to impulsive behaviors in models of substance use disorder.

Kelsey is currently a PhD student at the University of Minnesota Program in Neuroscience.

Born and raised in the Greater Cincinnati area, Chris has been in St. Louis since 2001. With a bachelor’s degree in biology from University of Dayton, and a master’s degree in zoology from Indiana University, she has chosen to focus her energies on lab management, while maintaining an interest in cell biology. Chris joined the Creed Lab in December 2018. When not tending to the needs of the lab, Chris spends time with her dogs and volunteers at a local animal shelter.