She loves mentoring the next generation of scientists and uncovering new aspects of the human brain.

Her work targets the rising prevalence and early onset of anxiety in childhood, its links to later depression and substance use, with the goal of identifying at-risk children and shaping prevention and intervention targets.

She will receive the 2026 Research Leadership Award in recognition of her long-standing research funding and leadership/mentorship on campus.

Her research focuses on human anxiety neurocircuits, especially the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), which she and her lab helped establish as critical to anxiety in humans.

Three lesser-known facts: she enjoys knitting and reading, left science for eight years and returned to a new field, and can nap and still fall asleep easily.

Jennifer Urbano Blackford, PhD, is the Hattie B. Munroe Professor, associate dean and director of research at the Munroe-Meyer Institute, who joined UNMC in 2021 after growing up in Miami, Florida.

Her toughest lesson is that rejection and failure are common in science, and she uses a personal slogan—the three P’s: Be persistent, positive and passionate—to navigate grant and manuscript reviews.

Advice to new researchers: pursue a question you are passionate about, even if it differs from your trainee work.

She underscores the potential impact of understanding neurobiological mechanisms of anxiety to improve early identification and treatment options for affected individuals.