We are excited to welcome Dr. Adam G. Gordon as an incoming Assistant Professor in Behavioral and Systems Neuroscience, joining in September 2026. Dr. Gordon's lab studies how lateral hypothalamus circuits regulate brain-wide dopamine release to drive motivated behavior and substance use disorder, supported by a NIDA K99/R00 award. His work combines fiber photometry, two-photon calcium imaging, and optogenetics with innovative head-fixed behavioral approaches. He comes to Rutgers from a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Garret Stuber at the University of Washington. Dr. Gordon is actively recruiting at all levels.
Dr. Gordon's laboratory investigates the neuronal mechanisms that drive positive and negative reinforcement and how these processes are recruited and transformed throughout the development of substance use disorder (SUD). His research centers on the lateral hypothalamus (LHA) and its role in coordinating brain-wide dopamine release to motivate behavior, with a focus on how LHA circuits regulate dopamine signaling during the development of opioid dependence. A long-term goal is to identify interventions that can selectively modulate positive and negative reinforcement for the treatment of SUD. To study these questions, the lab combines multi-site fiber photometry, including emerging fluorescent lifetime photometry approaches, with longitudinal two-photon calcium imaging, optogenetics, chemogenetics, and head-fixed behavioral platforms, using computational analyses to understand the multiplexed encoding of behavioral and state variables across these datasets. Research in the Gordon lab is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA K99/R00).