Lauren Graham originally hails from southern California (San Diego!). She earned her B.A. in Psychology at Yale University, where she completed a behavioral neuroscience track, and subsequently moved to the Pacific Northwest to continue studies in biopsychology here at UW. Lauren has been a part of the UW community for 18 years. In her graduate work with Jeansok Kim, she investigated the neural basis of stress and decision-making in rats. In 2012, she graduated, started a family, and began postdoctoral research at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, where she studied individual differences in decision-making in far more complicated brains – UW undergraduates.

Before she began teaching full-time at UW, she taught psychology and neuroscience courses at North Seattle College, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle University, and through a program called Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, to incarcerated women in Gig Harbor, Washington. She is now a faculty member in the Psych department and teaches a variety of undergraduate courses, including biopsychology, drugs and behavior, and stress and coping. Her academic interests center around equitable teaching -- she is particularly interested in accessible course design and alternative grading practices.

Outside of academics, Lauren enjoys hiking, knitting, LEGO, board games, food, and being in the water. She has biked to Portland twice, run a few half marathons, and summited Mt. Rainier.