Dr. Lisa Tarantino has been promoted to Full Professor in the Department of Genetics, effective July 1, 2021.
Dr. Tarantino earned her PhD in Genetics at Pennsylvania State University in 1998. She carried out postdoctoral research at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania for three years and was subsequently employed as a Group Leader and Program Director at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in San Diego. She joined the UNC faculty as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in 2007 and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2014; at that time, she was also given a secondary appointment in the Department of Genetics. In 2016, her primary appointment was transferred to Genetics. Dr. Tarantino is an accomplished mouse behavior geneticist. Her research has focused on addiction, anxiety, and depression, with the primary goal of identifying genes involved in behaviors that model psychiatric disease. Dr. Tarantino has served as a First Year Group leader in the past and now serves as the Faculty Director of the BBSP graduate program. She currently serves as Vice Chair for IACUC and as a member of the DCM Advisory Committee. Dr. Tarantino maintains secondary appointments in the Department of Psychiatry and the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and an adjunct appointment at The Jackson Laboratory.