Lab Members

PI

Dr. Kevin Coffey is a behavioral neuroscientist who earned his PhD from Rutgers University and completed a postdoc in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at the University of Washington. Dr. Coffey’s primary focus is studying the neurobiological consequences and predictors of chronic fentanyl use. To accomplish this, the lab utilizes cutting-edge in-vivo optical neuroscience tools (photometry, optogenetics, miniscopes) along with a newly developed oral-fentanyl self-administration model for rats and mice. He is also the lead developer for DeepSqueak, a popular software package for bioacoustics analysis that integrates machine-vision algorithms with an intuitive graphical interface to accelerate animal communication research.

Postdoctoral Scientist

Sierra is a graduate of the University of Washington Graduate Program in Neuroscience, where she studied human retinal physiology and color vision in the lab of Dr. Ram Sabesan developing computational methods to characterize spatial patterning of the spectral cone types. Prior, she worked as a technician in the lab of Dr. Beth Buffalo studying macaque hippocampal physiology with respect to learning and memory. She is excited to dive into fentanyl use research with the Coffey Lab and is particularly interested in how circuit dynamics change as motivation for drug-seeking evolves with use.

UW-SOAR Fellow

Jenna graduated from Seattle Pacific University with a BA in psychology. She is currently part of the University of Washington’s Substantial Opportunities in Addiction Research (UW-SOAR) Doctoral Readiness Program, a 2-year research fellowship for post-baccalaureates. Before joining the Coffey lab, she was researching chronic and acute effects of blast polytrauma in mice with Dr. Abbie Schindler. In undergrad, Jenna was a member of Dr. Piljoo Kang’s Cultural Development Lab and studied positive White racial identity in college-aged students. Her research interests are in pharmacology, neuroanatomy, and clinical psychiatric disorders. In the Coffey lab, Jenna is enjoying learning RNAscope and IHC, running fentanyl self-administration operant boxes, and learning animal surgeries and handling. Jenna loves playing instruments, singing in the car, watching movies with friends, and spending quality time in her childhood home, the Olympic National Park.

Research Scientist

Tam recently graduated with a master’s degree in Biology, specialized in Bioinformatics and Genomics at the University of Oregon. Her research experience spans cell biology, regenerative cell therapy, and most recently, computational biology. Prior to joining Coffey Lab, Tam worked as a bioinformatics intern at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where she developed reproducible computation pipelines for multi-modal single-cell genomics analysis. Tam hopes to bring all of her expertise to fentanyl use research in the Coffey Lab, combining her computational skills with her understanding of experimental biology.

Undergraduate RA

Chao-Yu is a second-year undergrad studying psychology at the University of Washington. She is interested in psychiatry, its applications within her community, and ways rat models and Deepsqueak can help the scientific community better understand the nuances of fentanyl use.