Dr. Butler received her B.A. in Psychology from Wittenberg University in 2006 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Behavioral Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology from the University of Kentucky in 2011. During the three years prior to joining the UD faculty, Tracy completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Wake Forest University School of Medicine while working with Dr. Jeff Weiner in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology. Dr. Butler’s research explores relationships between alcohol, stress, and the brain using preclinical rat models. Her previous work examined the effects of long-term alcohol exposure and withdrawal on neuronal cell death, as well as the effects of early life stress on alcohol intake and preference. The current aims of Dr. Butler’s research are to discover the environmental and physiological factors (e.g. stress, early alcohol exposure, sex, social factors) that predict high levels of alcohol consumption. Additionally, Dr. Butler is interested in how the neurobiological consequences of alcohol and/or stress differ in male and female subjects. Her lab uses standard behavioral, neurobiological, and molecular assays and is open to exploring new avenues of research methodology to answer her scientific questions.