For a kitten, a ball of string could provide hours of whimsical play. It might keep a child’s fidgety fingers occupied for a few minutes or serve as inspiration to a DIYer to get crafty. To behavioral neuroscientist Ashley Blackwell, string — and how it’s pulled — can represent something much more profound. It can help detect changes in a person or rodent’s fine motor skills and help unravel the mystery of disrupted brain activity due to external forces, substances, trauma, or disease.
String has been part of Blackwell’s research since she completed her Ph.D. at Northern Illinois University. It also plays an integral part in grant funding she’s received from NASA to study the effects of space flight stressors on neural activity, cognition, and sensorimotor function in a rodent model.
As a new assistant professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts, she brings enthusiasm and strong NASA ties. Here, she plans to help UNLV students, especially those from underrepresented populations, nurture their love of science and pursue careers in STEM through a $1.2 million grant-funded partnership.
Tell us about your background before coming to UNLV.
My Ph.D. is in psychology with a focus on behavioral neuroscience, and I evaluated cognition and movement organization in rodent models of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. At the end of my Ph.D., I became involved in NASA work. A collaborator was presenting our study at a conference. A NASA-funded principal investigator saw the string-pulling behavioral task I had developed to assess sensorimotor function and was really keen on applying it to some of his work. All the NASA work began to balloon from that experience. I did a quick study using the behavioral task I’d developed, and I showed that, after space radiation exposure, these animals had some fine motor deficits.
If you think about what astronauts do in space, they have to be able to manipulate their tools to do their different tasks. That could really be critical to their mission’s success. No one had looked at fine motor skills after space flight stressors or space radiation, specifically. We had identified a gap in the field, and we had someone providing information and resources. With that, I was able to apply for a small grant, which I thankfully got. I was able to continue the work after my postdoctoral fellowship and now as a faculty member.
What inspired you to get into your field?
When I was younger, I always knew I wanted to do science of some sort. I started to question things in the environment and around the world. I wanted to know why people behaved in certain ways and what contributed to the organization of their behavior.
After learning about the opportunities in psychology, and ultimately, neuroscience, I fell in love with research after joining a lab. I had a really great mentor during undergrad, Dr. Douglas Wallace, who then became my Ph.D. advisor. We are still in contact. That was critical to scaffolding my path and providing the support that’s needed.
Life isn’t easy. Having someone there to show you there are still ways to be successful regardless of your background or what obstacles you may face is important. I think that was really critical. My goal now is to strengthen that message and share it with students.
Tell us about your newest NASA grant and how it will benefit UNLV students.
The new grant is really focused on enhancing research and education for minority students at UNLV in partnership with NASA. We’re going to have workshops for faculty and students that teach them about NASA’s goals and make it really accessible for them to apply for grant-funded opportunities. We hope to develop courses that teach people about space flight stressors and how to work with open source, large data sets using machine-learning techniques.
We’d like to offer students a skill set that they can use if they want to go into academia, industry, or data science. This will be applicable to any STEM majors as well as psychology and neuroscience students. We’ll have 11 to 13 research internships each summer for undergraduate or graduate students. They’ll either be in California at the Jet Propulsion Lab through NASA (focused on engineering, planetary science and environmental studies), the NASA Johnson Space Center in Texas (neuroscience, sensorimotor and vestibular adaptation) or at the University of Florida (neuromotor adaptation) with Dr. Rachael Seidler, co-PI on the grant.
The program starts Oct. 1 and will run through 2026. Interested students are highly encouraged to contact me directly via email.
What drew you to UNLV?
The No. 1 thing was the diversity. It’s a great place with a lot of resources. I wanted to be able to learn from that and contribute to it. There are amazing people and really great research going on across campus. I think it’s very exciting that it’s now an R1 institution, and you have a lot of freedom to build your research program the way you want. More people are applying for grants and trying to cultivate this environment. I think if we keep pushing, we’ll be able to get there and provide R1 resources to students.
What’s the most “Vegas” thing you’ve done since you got here?
I drove down the Strip and that felt very Vegas-y. I saw people waiting to take pictures at the Las Vegas sign, and I couldn’t believe that. I haven’t done that yet, but it would definitely be a Vegas-y thing.
What do laypeople usually ask you about your field?
During my Ph.D., we would do STEM fests where different departments and organizations would have tables, and anyone from the community could come through. We’d have demonstrations, information, and videos going that we could talk about. People would always ask how to treat different neurological disorders, whether it was Alzheimer’s or stroke or multiple sclerosis. We would always guide them to the correct resources so they could get the information and help they were asking for. It was always accompanied with some sort of personal story.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Just keep going. Life is going to get hard. Find the resources and support you need, especially in school when you’re not necessarily near your family.
What’s the best three-month stretch of the year?
The summer. It’s a little more laid back in the lab. You have more time to think about things, maybe write something you’ve been waiting to write, or start a new project. There are usually more opportunities for students in the labs in the summer, so that’s exciting.
