Caroline Palavicino-Maggio facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Caroline Palavicino-Maggio
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| Born | January 30 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Rider College Rutgers University at New Jersey Medical School Harvard Medical School |
| Known for | Neural circuits underlying aggression in female Drosophila |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience |
| Institutions | Harvard Medical School |
Caroline Palavicino-Maggio is an American neuroscientist and a professor at Harvard Medical School. She also leads the Neurobiological Mechanisms of Aggression Laboratory at McLean Hospital. Dr. Palavicino-Maggio studies how genes and brain circuits change social behavior, especially aggression. She is also dedicated to helping and inspiring students, especially those who are the first in their families to go to college, to pursue careers in science. She is the Director of Outreach for the Journal of Emerging Investigators, which publishes research by middle and high school students. This helps young scientists learn about academic research and how to publish their work.
Early Life and Education
Caroline Palavicino-Maggio was born in Harlem and grew up in Washington Heights in New York City. Her mother came from Colombia, and her father, who was a Mapuche descendant, came from Chile. Her family later moved to Edgewater, New Jersey. Her mother worked in a factory, and her father was an elevator mechanic for the New York City Housing Authority.
When Caroline was 13, her sister passed away. This sad event made Caroline want to study aggression through neuroscience and behavior. Growing up, she also saw violent crimes in her neighborhoods. These experiences made her even more interested in understanding how the brain controls aggression. Dr. Palavicino-Maggio hopes her work will help improve criminal psychology and law by showing how the brain affects behavior.
In 2002, she earned a bachelor's degree in Biopsychology and Political Sociology from Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. From 2002 to 2008, she worked as a research assistant at Rockefeller University and Columbia University. During this time, she presented her research at a science conference. There, she met Nick Ingolglia, who encouraged her to go to graduate school.
In 2009, Dr. Palavicino-Maggio began her PhD at Rutgers University at New Jersey Medical School. She studied how certain medicines for mental illness can cause weight gain. Patients sometimes stop taking these important medicines because of side effects like weight gain. She wanted to understand why this happens to help patients stay healthy. She believed that antipsychotic medicines might affect how the body absorbs fructose (a type of sugar) in the intestines. She found that a medicine called clozapine caused weight gain in mice and increased fructose absorption. She earned her PhD in Neuropharmacology and Neurophysiology in 2013.
Career
After getting her PhD, Dr. Palavicino-Maggio wanted to continue her research. In 2016, she started her postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School. To prepare, she took a special course on Drosophila (fruit flies) neurobiology. She then began working with Edward Kravitz at Harvard, studying aggression in fruit flies.
Dr. Palavicino-Maggio's research looks at how proteins in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) relate to very aggressive behaviors. By understanding how aggression works in these simple animals, her research can help us learn more about how genes cause aggressive behaviors. This knowledge could eventually help develop treatments for people with certain brain disorders.
She has studied aggressive behavior in different types of Drosophila. She found that flies from cooler places were more aggressive and better at courtship than flies from warmer places. This research helped her explore the biological reasons for aggression. Her work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2019.
Dr. Palavicino-Maggio and her team wanted to know which brain circuits control aggression in female flies. They found that some female flies were extremely aggressive, while males were not. The fights among these female flies even led to social rankings. They discovered that a very small group of 2–4 neurons in the female fly brain seemed to cause this aggressive behavior. These specific neurons were not found in male flies. This amazing discovery shows that a tiny number of brain cells can control strong and specific behaviors. This helps scientists understand how brain cells work together to create complex social behaviors.
Advocacy and Service
Dr. Palavicino-Maggio is a strong supporter of diversity, fairness, and inclusion in science. She is part of several committees at Harvard's Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership. She also advises a program at Harvard Medical School that helps students learn about health professions.
As the Director of Outreach for the Journal of Emerging Investigators, Dr. Palavicino-Maggio helps find research projects from students around the world, especially from Central America, South America, and Africa. One project she worked on with students in Boston looked for bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. They found that bacteria from the Harvard T-station (a subway stop) showed signs of being resistant to ampicillin, an antibiotic.
Within Harvard's Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership, Dr. Palavicino-Maggio is on committees that focus on community engagement and social justice. She helps suggest ideas for events and discussions related to social justice. She also helps make sure that high school students from underrepresented groups get the right skills and knowledge to succeed in science fields.
Dr. Palavicino-Maggio also works to build connections between American and Cuban scientists. As part of this effort, she hosted Enrique Beldarrain Chaple, a professor from Cuba who studies public health and the history of medicine.
Awards and Honors
- 1998: Eleanor Humanitarian Award
- 1998: Unilever Research, U.S., Scholarship Recipient
- 2008: Rutgers University, Honor Society for Research Scholars
- 2008: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Pre-doctoral Sloan Scholar
- 2011: NIMH Independent Research Grant - Effects of Atypical Antipsychotics on Fructose Metabolism and Weight Gain
- 2012: New York Academy of Sciences with PepsiCo, R&D Young Scientist Award
- 2016: Harvard Medical School, Society for Translational and Academic Researcher Fellow
See also
In Spanish: Caroline Palavicino-Maggio para niños
