I am a Professor in the Sensory Systems & Neuroscience Division of the department of Psychology at the University of Virginia. My lab develops novel behavioral and cognitive protocols for olfactory discrimination learning. We design computer-automated instrumental learning techniques in training rodent species to become efficient bio-detectors of explosives odorants or a wide range of hazardous chemical agents. The objective of this work is to create proven behavioral strategies that reduce the time frame for training rodents to reliably search for, identify and distinguish explosive and other odorants that are harmful to humans. I received a B.A. degree in Psychology from the HBCU, N.C. A & T Univ., a Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology from Southern Illinois Univ. and served as a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the Univ. of California-Irvine. I have been a faculty member at the Univ. of Virginia since in 1995. My national service includes participation as a grant review panel member for NIH, NSF, Dept. of Defense and Veterans Administration for over 25 years in addition to holding the position of Program Director at NSF’s Neural Systems cluster in the Directorate of Biological Sciences (2009-2011). I was awarded the Alumni Achievement Award from APA’s Diversity in Neuroscience Program, an NSF-Director’s Achievement Award for Broadening Participation in the sciences, Outstanding Professor of the Year Award from the Dept. of Psychology and funded the lab’s research projects through grant awards from the NIH, NSF, DARPA, Army Research Office and the Dept. of Defense.