T32 Postdoc Success Stories
Through my time on the T32, I gained critical training and research experience enabling me to obtain an NIH K99/R00 “Pathway to Independence” award, which in turn helped me to attain a tenure-track faculty position and generous start-up for my lab.
-Dr Katherine Martucci, Duke University
Katherine Martucci Ph.D. is a neuroscientist specializing in human clinical research of chronic pain, reward/motivation behaviors, sensory/pain perception, and opioid use/addiction. Dr. Martucci is Associate Professor in the Center for Translational Pain Medicine and Department of Anesthesiology at Duke University. As the Director of the Human Affect and Pain Neuroscience Laboratory, she and her team use a combination of neuroimaging techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain and spinal cord, as well as sensory, behavioral, and psychological tests to study complex neurophysiological interactions in occurring as part of chronic pain conditions. After completing her undergraduate education at the University of Connecticut, Dr. Martucci obtained her Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Anatomy at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. While at Stanford she collaborated on a multi-site MAPP Research Network conducting neuroimaging research to study chronic pelvic pain. She also established a new research program studying pain and opioid use in individuals with fibromyalgia. Dr. Martucci currently serves on the Board of Directors for the United States Association for the Study of Pain (USASP). Her international contributions include serving on the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Membership Committee and on the 2020 Global Year for Prevention of Pain task force. Dr. Martucci has received over $8 million in funding, including a prestigious K99/R00 NIH fellowship (awarded to her while she was a postdoc at Stanford) and multiple NIH R01 awards.
The T32 in Anesthesiology provided the foundation to launch my independent research on the brain circuits of pain and opioids—work that has shaped new directions in anesthesia and pain medicine.
-Dr. Gregory Corder, UPenn
Gregory Corder earned a BS in Cell & Molecular Biology from Tulane University (2007) and a PhD in Physiology from the University of Kentucky (2013), studying spinal cord pain mechanisms and opioid pharmacology. He completed postdoctoral training in Anesthesiology at Stanford University (2013 to 2018), supported by the T32, a F32 NRSA and a K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. At Stanford he used systems neuroscience approaches to define brain limbic neural ensembles that encode the unpleasantness of pain and the actions of endogenous and therapeutic opioids; this work was featured in Science, Nature, and Nature Medicine. Greg is now an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. His lab integrates in vivo neural activity imaging, optogenetics, electrophysiology, transcriptomics, and deep-learning behavior analysis to map pain circuits and develop non-addictive, circuit-targeted strategies for analgesia. Recent publications include the lab’s first papers in Nature, Nature Neuroscience, and Science Advances, and the group has been awarded five NIH R01 grants along with the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2) and the Rita Allen Foundation Pain Scholar Award, and all seven trainees in the Corder Lab have been awarded NIH Fellowships. Current projects span endogenous opioid circuit mechanisms, cortical ensemble dynamics in chronic pain, and open-source tools for automated pain behavior quantification.
The Stanford Pain T32 provided me with the time, training, mentorship, and resources to grow my independent research career.
-Dr Kenneth Weber, Stanford
Kenneth A. Weber II, DC, PhD is a chiropractor and neuroscientist. He completed his clinical training at Palmer College of Chiropractic and his research training at Northwestern University. His PhD research sought to optimize imaging and analytical methods for spinal cord functional MRI. In 2016, he came to Stanford as a NIDA T32 postdoctoral fellow training in interdisciplinary pain research where he expanded his MRI skillset to include brain imaging. In 2018, he transitioned to a NINDS K23 Career Development Award gaining additional experience in musculoskeletal MRI and computer-vision techniques. In 2025, Dr. Weber was appointed to the faculty of Stanford School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine with courtesy appointments in Radiology and Neurosurgery. Dr. Weber directs the multidisciplinary Neuromuscular Insight Lab (NILab), which seeks to make MRI more quantitative through the development of MRI-based markers that better track sensory and motor function in people with musculoskeletal conditions, neurological injury, and chronic pain. Dr. Weber is currently the Principal Investigator of two NINDS R01’s studying mechanisms of degenerative cervical myelopathy and cervical radiculopathy.
Contact Information
Dr. Sean Mackey
c/o Stanford Pain T32 team
1070 Arastradero, Suite 200
Palo Alto, CA 94304
Study Information
More information about our ongoing studies can be found on the Division of Pain Medicine webpage.