Margaret Mcnerney PhD

Margaret Windy McNerney is the Director of Biological Sciences for the MIRECC at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Palo Alto, and a Clinical Associate Professor (Affiliated) at Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. McNerney holds a particular passion for not only understanding the neurophysiology and biochemistry of mental health diseases but also advocating for these invisible diseases. Her research focuses on neurodegeneration, depression, TBI, PTSD, and addiction. She is collaborating with researchers to integrate brain imaging and biochemical markers in hopes of better understanding these diseases. She also is taking a lead role at the VA in investigating the biochemistry of magnetic brain stimulation and is the leader of the NeuroNado Laboratory. At Stanford University, she is the professor of two popular courses examining the biological and societal issues surrounding substance use disorder, with a major focus on opioids such as fentanyl. She has individually mentored over 25 students from underrepresented groups in STEM activities and leads monthly seminars aimed at facilitating career development. In her free time, she is a community advocate for the treatment of mental health and educates groups about the dangers of fentanyl.

She earned her BS from UC Davis and her PhD from the University of Notre Dame. While at ND, she interned at NASA Ames on Human Factors Engineering. She then went on to a postdoctoral position at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE), and then completed a fellowship at the WRIISC program at the VA and Stanford University.