Astra S. Bryant, PhD

Dr. Bryant is a neuroscientist and a parasitologist specializing in the thermal physiology of soil-transmitted parasitic nematodes. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of Washington.  The Bryant lab opened January 2023 in Seattle!

Dr. Bryant completed her postdoctoral training  in lab of Dr. Elissa Hallem at the University of California, Los Angeles. She received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University, and a B.A. in Biology from Bryn Mawr College.

During her scientific career, Dr. Bryant has worked on a wide array of topics in systems and circuits neuroscience, including the neural underpinnings of absence epilepsy and spatial attention, the central pattern generators that drive leeches to swim, as well as how brain hormones control the social status of African cichlid fish. Her recent postdoctoral work has focused on identifying the mechanistic basis of temperature-driven host seeking by the infective larvae of soil-transmitted helminths. For more information regarding Dr. Bryant's research focus, please visit her lab website.

Dr. Bryant is a 2017 A.P. Giannini Postdoctoral Fellow, and has received several research awards, including the 2021 Boyer/Parvin Award for Excellence in Molecular Biology research, the 2020 Arnold Scheibel Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow Award, and the 2020 M. John Pickett Award for Outstanding Achievement in Postdoctoral Research.