The Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences Announces Leadership Changes

​The University of Delaware Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences has begun the academic year with changes to its leadership team. Former department chair Tania Roth has joined the College of Arts and Sciences leadership team as Associate Dean for the natural sciences and Professor Robert West has been named interim department chair. ​

​Tania Roth

​Tania Roth has been with the University of Delaware since 2010. Prior to joining UD, Roth received her doctoral degree from the University of Oklahoma in 2004, and her bachelor of science degree in biology from Roanoke College in 1998. She has received numerous honors and awards for scholarship, including a Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the 2010 Ziskind-Somerfeld award from the Society of Biological Psychiatry, a 2015 Early Career Impact Award from the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences, and she was elected a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. Currently funded by the National Institutes of Health, Roth’s research entails the identification of epigenetic changes associated with early-life caregiving experiences. She focuses on brain regions that play a role in behavior and mental health and that are susceptible to the damaging effects of early-life stress.​​

Rob​ert West

​Robert West has been with the University of Delaware since 2022 as a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. He received his doctoral degree in Experimental Psychology in 1996 from the University of South Carolina, and his bachelor of arts degree in Psychology and Religious Studies from Western Kentucky University in 1991. He has previously served as the Elizabeth P. Allen Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Depauw University and as a professor in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University. West is a founding member of the Society for NeuroIS and his research interests include basic neurocognitive processes in the control of attention directed to the external and internal worlds, reward processing, ethical decision-making, and prospective memory. His laboratory uses behavioral and electrophysiological methods to explore these and other research interests.​​​