Lori L. McMahon, PhD was appointed as Vice President of Research at the University of Virginia in June 2024 and reports directly to the Provost. Dr. McMahon previously served as Vice-President of Research and Professor of Neuroscience since 2021 at the Medical University of South Carolina. Prior to this, she spent 23.5 years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and held an endowed professorship in neuroscience and several leadership roles including Director of the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center and Dean of the UAB Graduate School where she oversaw approximately 110 masters and PhD Programs and 7500+ students. 

Her fundamental neuroscience research laboratory has been consistently funded by the NIH since 2000 with her work focusing on brain circuits that underlie learning and memory, with a particular focus on aging, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and neuropsychiatric illness such as anxiety and depression. Her work involves use of sophisticated methods that allow direct measurement of electrical brain activity in preclinical models that mimic human disease. 

She is a dedicated educator and mentor having received numerous teaching and mentorship awards, served on over one hundred PhD dissertation committees, and has mentored more than 50 trainees in her own laboratory, including undergraduate students, PhD trainees, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. In addition, Dr. McMahon has held leadership roles for national committees, has served on numerous NIH and other funding agencies grant review panels, and has been a member of editorial boards for scientific journals.