T32 Program

As a graduate student or potential postdoctoral fellow interested in aging research, you may qualify for training opportunities available through a T32 research training grant at Oklahoma Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging in Oklahoma City.

Support for Professional Research in Aging

Support your quest for answers to issues of aging and age-related disease with substantive skills that can help secure independent funding. Take advantage of professional research training at Oklahoma Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging. All seven T32 positions – four for postdoctoral fellows and three for graduate students – include mentorship designed to build your expertise and support your interests.

Program Mentors and Activities

At Oklahoma Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging, program mentors typically come from within the professional aging community. A mentor from outside the aging community may be assigned a faculty member focused on aging research to serve as a co-mentor.

Along with you, mentors attend the fall/spring semester weekly seminar series and weekly journal club sponsored by the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation and Oklahoma Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging. In addition, mentors meet regularly with you to assess and discuss progress on your defined project, including short-term and long-term/future goals. Mentors also assist you in submitting both publications and grant applications, as appropriate.

T32 Director

William E. Sonntag, PhD

Geroscience College of Medicine
Department of Biochemistry & Physiology
Professor and Chair
Director of Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging

Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology and Founding Director, Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging, George Lynn Cross Professor of Research and Donald W. Reynolds Chair of Aging Research. Dr. Sonntag graduated from Tufts University with a BS in Psychology and Chemistry and completed his PhD at Tulane University in Physiological Psychology. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Michigan State University in Molecular Neuroendocrinology, Dr. Sonntag held several faculty positions and leadership roles in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology at Wake Forest University before accepting the position as Founding Director of the Center for Geroscience and Healthy Brain Aging at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Sonntag has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health and has been a member of numerous NIH study sections.

T32 Trainees

Jillian Cox

My name is Jillian E. J. Cox, and I am a PhD candidate in the Neuroscience Program at the University of Oklahoma Health Center. I conduct my dissertation research in the laboratory of Dr. Sarah Ocañas at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. My work focuses on elucidating the mechanisms underlying sex differences in Alzheimer's disease, with particular emphasis on sex chromosome-mediated regulation of microglial responses in aging and neurodegeneration.

Eric Moore

My research examines the intersection between developmental biology and aging, specifically investigating the effects of maternal obesity on aging and their offspring. I focus on characterizing the long-term phenotypes seen in maternal obesity offspring and on uncovering the mechanisms through which these changes are transmitted from mothers to their offspring. My comprehensive approach integrates mouse behavioral studies with cutting-edge techniques in biochemistry and bioinformatics, providing a unique, integrated perspective necessary for answering key questions in the developmental origins of health and disease.

Michaela Vance

My name is Michaela Vance. I am a fourth year PhD candidate in ther Department of Cell Biology in Dr. Shannon Conley's lab. Our investigates the cellular mechanisms underlting age-related vascular fragility in the brain and its contribution to cognitive decline. My project specifically examines how endothelial-to-mesenchymal transition, a cellular transdifferentation process, becomes more prevalent with aging and exacerbates vascular fragility.