Caitlin Cowan PhD, M Psychol

Dr. Caitlin Cowan is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership Investigator who takes a translational approach to the study of the microbiota-gut-brain axis, informed by her training in clinical psychology and behavioural neuroscience. Prior to this, she was a Marie Curie postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Prof John Cryan and Prof Ted Dinan at the APC Microbiome Ireland, where her work focused on the importance of early life microbiota in shaping neurodevelopmental outcomes. This was built on her PhD (UNSW, supervised by Prof Rick Richardson), which examined the use of a probiotic formulation to ameliorate behavioral, neural, and physical markers of development in stressed rats.