Bio
Kimberley McAllister serves as the inaugural Vice Provost for Research, Scholarly Inquiry, and Creative Activity (VPRSICA). As VPRSICA, McAllister provides strategic leadership and vision as Wake Forest enters an exciting new phase of continued growth of its research enterprise. She supports research within Wake Forest’s teacher-scholar model, aligns research priorities with the University’s academic mission and strategic framework, strengthens research infrastructure and compliance, and identifies opportunities for collaboration within and beyond the University.
McAllister holds a dual appointment as a professor in the Department of Biology and professor of Translational Neurosciences at Wake Forest School of Medicine.
McAllister comes from the University of California, Davis, where she served as director of the Center for Neuroscience and Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior. She spent nearly 25 years at UC Davis, providing extensive service and leadership. As director of the Center for Neuroscience, she oversaw dramatic growth in research funding, philanthropic support, and interdisciplinary initiatives. Her research, continuously funded by the NIH for more than 20 years, has made seminal contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms of both synapse formation in the developing brain and synapse loss in Alzheimer’s disease. She has also been a pioneer in the field of neuroimmunology, identifying new roles for classical immune molecules at synapses in neurons and mediating the effects of maternal infection in predisposing offspring to autism and schizophrenia.
McAllister earned her BS in Biology from Davidson College and her PhD in Neurobiology from Duke University. Prior to joining UC Davis, she completed postdoctoral training at the Salk Institute. At UC Davis, she published over 80 manuscripts and chapters, was awarded 25 grants, and trained 10 graduate students, 13 postdocs and over 60 undergraduate researchers. McAllister is also the recipient of numerous awards and honors and is a highly sought-after speaker and scientific advisor.