Victoria Luine

Before joining Hunter College in 1988, she was Associate Professor of  Neuroendocrinology at Rockefeller University in NYC.  Professor Luine has a world-wide reputation presenting lectures in the USA, Europe and Asia.  She is the recipient of numerous government and private grants and awards.  Her research utilizes rats and mice to understand how hormones, both adrenal and gonadal, alter neural function which leads to impairments or enhancements, respectively, of both cognition and sexual behavior.  Recent studies have also investigated how hormones might interact with addictive drugs like amphetamine and methamphetamine to enhance the addictive process.  She has published approximately 200 research papers.  This research has important implications for humans: understanding and treating memory loss that occurs with aging and dementia and following bouts of chronic stress.  Prof. Luine is also the director of the Hunter College MBRS-RISE program (NIH), which supports research for undergraduate and graduate students, and the SCORE Program (NIH), an Institutional Development Program to improve the research environment and enhance ability of the faculty to conduct biomedical research.  Prof. Luine previously served on the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences MRPC-B Subcommittee which reviews grants and advises the Directors of NIGMS and NIH on policy. She is the first recipient of the Bernice Grafstein Award for mentoring (2009) from the Society for Neuroscience