How are you?
I’m pretty good! I’m currently sitting on my couch with my dog snuggled up next to me. This is the second weekend in a row we’ve been cooped up due to winter weather, and he’s loving it.
Please introduce yourself. What should the world know about Brooke Bender?
Hi! I’m Brooke. I’m from Chardon, a small town in northeastern Ohio. I really value connecting with people, engaging in creative activities, and experiencing new things. At home, this means spending time with friends, trying new things, reading a lot, and picking up various creative hobbies like knitting, embroidery, cooking, and 3D printing. I also feel fortunate that I get to fulfill all these values in my career as a teacher/scientist. I find purpose in trying to understand the perspectives of people whose life experiences are different from my own and in the small ways I can have a positive impact on other peoples’ lives. One of my strongest opinions is that science is a much more creative process than the average person thinks it is. The creativity involved in coming up with valuable scientific questions, designing novel experiments with limited tools, and even communicating results in an engaging way is sometimes underrated. I love helping people discover the creative aspect of science. I also love animals and staying active. I’ve been an avid horse girl since a very young age, so even though I don’t own a horse, I try to ride about once a week, and I also really enjoy yoga and walking my dog.
In simple terms, can you tell us a little about your research and the questions that motivate your work?
I’ve always been really interested in the relationship between biology (mostly the brain) and behavior, and in how our genes and environment interact to make us all unique individuals. I have a (fraternal) twin brother, and even though we shared the same environment and ~50% of our genes, in many ways we were opposites growing up, which really fascinated me even as a kid. The overall question that motivates my research is “why do we make the choices we make and do the things we do?” More specifically, I’m interested in why we make decisions even though we know those choices might be harming us, which is a common pattern in many psychiatric disorders. Most of my research focuses on the neurobiology underlying substance use disorders. I want to understand how drugs change the brain and cause damaging behavioral patterns, and also how stress could make someone more susceptible to developing psychiatric disorders. In my research, I use rats to answer these questions, because the way our brains are organized and how different brain regions interact are really similar. Also, unlike with humans, we can control a lot of factors in their environment, and we can also correlate changes in behavior with changes in the brain that are difficult to measure in humans. I’m currently in my third year as a postdoctoral fellow in the Besheer Lab in the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, where I’ve enjoyed pursuing a lot of different projects related to these questions.
You are a postdoctoral fellow in the SPIRE program. For readers who may not be familiar, can you briefly explain what the SPIRE Program is and what initially drew you to it?
The SPIRE program, which stands for Seeding Postdoctoral Innovators in Research and Education, is one of ~20 postdoctoral programs in the United States historically funded by the NIH IRACDA (Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Awards) funding mechanism. When I was a graduate student and I was trying to decide what I wanted to do with my future, I was very interested in getting teaching experience, because I knew that my favorite parts of graduate school involved teaching, both as a TA and one-on-one in the lab. Most postdoctoral programs are heavily focused on research, and these are some of the only programs that I know of that provide postdocs with both funding to cover their salary in a research lab and a built-in teaching experience. Additionally, the IRACDA programs have a focus on making postdocs well-rounded educators employing evidence-based teaching practices, which includes teaching at one of several partner institutions that typically serve students from underrepresented populations. SPIRE at UNC was one of the first IRACDA programs that received funding in 1999, and the current partner institutions include North Carolina Central University, North Carolina A&T, UNC Pembroke, and Johnson C. Smith University. I was drawn to SPIRE because of its long history as a program, its strong relationships with the partner institutions, and the focus on development of evidence-based teaching skills. Unfortunately, the IRACDA funding mechanism has been removed in the past year, and it is uncertain if SPIRE, along with all the other IRACDA programs, will be able to apply for grant renewal when the grants reach the end of their 5-year cycles. I hope things will change, but it looks like we are at risk of losing these amazing opportunities for postdocs to get teaching experience, and it would be unfortunate to lose the connections between the IRACDA institutions and their partner institutions.
As part of SPIRE, you teach at a partner institution and are an instructor at North Carolina A&T. What have you learned about teaching through this experience, including any challenges or surprises? How do you balance your research and teaching responsibilities?
I was fortunate to have the opportunity through SPIRE to teach one class each in the Spring and Fall semesters of 2025 at North Carolina A&T. I taught an intro-level biology course and a Neurobiology of Addiction course that I developed that was more of a seminar focused on discussing and critically analyzing primary research. I learned a lot through both experiences. SPIRE did a great job of preparing me for a lot of the challenges of teaching, so I don’t think there were any major surprises, but the most valuable thing I learned was how to adapt my teaching style to the individual needs of my students. Undergraduates face a lot of challenges, including difficulty staying engaged, outside pressures from life and family, and learning to balance several responsibilities. I learned that there are many ways for me to adapt my teaching to make things easier for them, such as providing guided class notes to help keep them focused, giving them clear examples to demonstrate my expectations, and not scheduling an exam during their homecoming, which at A&T is known as the “Greatest Homecoming on Earth.” While I was teaching, I balanced my time by compartmentalizing as much as possible. I tried to reserve some days for focusing on my teaching responsibilities, and others for focusing on my research. My ability to continue productivity in research while teaching has been strongly supported by the amazing undergraduates I’ve worked with in our lab and the collaborative working environment cultivated by my lab’s PI, Joyce Besheer.
It can be challenging for postdocs to gain teaching experience. What advice would you give to postdocs who want to build teaching skills during their training, and are there any resources that you would recommend?
It can be difficult for postdocs to gain teaching experience, especially if you’re funded by your mentor’s grants, because that puts a lot of pressure on research productivity. For postdocs who want to teach a full course themselves, it may be beneficial to obtain their own funding, either through an F32 or T32, which usually allow for a certain percentage of teaching time. UNC and many nearby colleges and universities are often looking for part-time instructors, so if you’re fortunate enough to be in that position where you have your own funding, simply reaching out to chairs of departments would probably be a good way to find opportunities. For others not in a position to teach a class on their own, you may be able to give some guest lectures, co-teach a class with a faculty member or another postdoc, or you could consider teaching a course over the summer since those have a more condensed timeline. Even for postdocs who had TA experience as a graduate student like I did, jumping into teaching an entire class can be daunting, but there are tons of resources through UNC and online for developing confidence in teaching. For example, at UNC, CIRTL (the Center for Integrated Research, Teaching, and Learning) offers lots of workshops, certificates, and resources for all disciplines. TIBBS (Training Initiatives in Biomedical and Biological Sciences) also has some great resources as well. I also found the InstructSTEM (rooting practice in pedagogy) teaching course, available online, to be helpful in preparing me to teach my first course. My overall advice would be to talk to people. Communicate with your mentors, peers, and colleagues about your desires and goals, and they may be able to help you find opportunities you didn’t know existed.
Can you recommend any interesting things for postdocs to experience while living in the Triangle area?
There are so many fun things to do in this area, especially if you like food or the outdoors. I love going to shows at Cat’s Cradle; I’ve probably been to more shows in the past few years than overall before I moved here. The Carrboro Music Festival is also a must. I’m a huge fan of writing somewhere away from both home and the lab, and some of my go-to work-from-coffee-shop spots are Lanza’s Cafe, Evendough Bakery, and Open Eye in Carrboro. If you have kids, have family with kids visiting, or want to reawaken the kid in yourself, stop by Spring Haven Farm, where you can hang out with goats, shoot paintballs, or “mine” some “gems.” Check out what food trucks are at Steel String Brewery at Pluck Farm. Go see a show at DPAC or eat some hotdogs at a Bulls game. If you can save up to celebrate a special occasion, I highly recommend experiencing a meal at the Fearrington House Restaurant in Fearrington Village.
Can you share a book, movie, or podcast that has had a meaningful impact on you?
I read a lot of different genres, especially fantasy (including YA fantasy), contemporary fiction, and memoirs. Some of my recent favorite reads were The Will of the Many by James Islington, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, Loca by Alejandro Heredia, Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, and The Legendborn Cycle series by Tracy Deonn (written by a UNC alum and set partially in Chapel Hill). I am an avid Survivor watcher, and I am really excited for Season 50’s premiere. I used to listen to a lot of podcasts, but I listen to fewer now that I often listen to audiobooks instead. Sometimes I throw on Normal Gossip when I’m in the mood for some low-stakes drama that has nothing to do with me.
Where do you hope to see yourself in the next 5 years?
I recently accepted a position as Lecturer in Neuroscience at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, where I’ll be starting in July, and I’m really excited. I hope to spend the semesters focused on teaching and exposing undergraduates to research through course-based undergraduate research experiences in the lab sections of my courses. I also hope to mentor undergraduates through more independent research projects over the summers. In the next five years, I’d like to establish a community and support system, get a house with a yard for my dog, keep riding horses, and maintain my creative hobbies. I also see myself traveling more in my time off.