Associate Professor of Neuroscience

Year Joined RCNJ: 2025

Contact Information

• Email: klynch13@ramapo.edu
• Office: G-201

Education:

PhD in Neuroscience; University of Texas at Austin
M.S. in Organismal Biology; Idaho State University
B.S. in Biology; University of Montana

Teaching Interest:

I teach courses in Neuroscience including introductory and higher
level courses. Courses I have taught at other universities include Hormones and
Behavior, Animal Behavior, Animal Physiology, Animal Communication, General
Physiology, Ornithology, Intro to Cellular and Molecular Biology, Bioinformatics, as well
as Brain, Behavior and Evolution. I believe that students learn best when they
understand how the content intersects with their everyday lives. I strive to get students
to make these connections to improve their grasp of scientific concepts.

Courses Taught:

Bio 343 Neuroscience
Neuro 305 Research Methods in Neuroscience

Research Interest:

More than 2300 years ago, Aristotle described what may be the first recorded observations of brood parasitic birds stealing parental care from other birds and the negative impacts this had on the host species left to care for these young. In 1859, Darwin noted that brood parasitic species were likely related to species that built their own nests, incubated their own eggs and provisioned their own young. This was the earliest suggestion that brood parasitism is an evolutionary derived behavior that likely evolved from an ancestor with parental care. While brood parasitic behavior is a rare behavior in birds, the fact that both Aristotle and Darwin recorded their reflections about these birds highlights just how fascinating brood parasitic behavior has been to biologist and non-biologists alike and how intriguing it is to consider “why” and “how” this novel behavioral phenotype evolved.  This makes it even more surprising that the preponderance of studies that investigate this behavior have been focused on understanding “why” this behavior may have evolved, whereas there are remarkably few physiology or neurobiological studies aimed at understanding “how” this behavior has evolved.  Consequently, brood parasitism is one example of a behavior in which biologists have yet to unite the ultimate and proximate explanations initially proposed by Nikolaas Tinbergen in 1963. Studying the proximate mechanisms, including neurobiological and physiological, for the evolution of avian brood parasitism is the main objective of my research.

Recent Publications:

Lynch, K.S. and Henson, E., 2025. Reproductive steroids as potential mediators of
parental reproductive trade-offs in a brood parasitic species. Journal of
Experimental Biology, 228(9), p.jeb250044.
Duque, F., Azam, A., Kaur, A., Pao, R and Lynch K.S. 2024. Divergent neural nodes
are species and hormone-dependent in the brood parasitic brain. Genes, Brain
and Behavior Genes, Brain and Behavior, 23(5), p.e12907.
Antonson, N.D., Enos, J.K., Lawson, S.L., Uy, F.M.K., Gill, S.A., Lynch, K.S. and
Hauber, M.E., 2024. Functional neurogenomic responses to acoustic threats,
including a heterospecific referential alarm call and its referent, in the auditory
forebrain of red-winged blackbirds.Scientific reports, 14(1), p.2155.
KS Lynch. 2021. The neuroethology of avian brood parasitism. Journal of Experimental
Biology, 224(17), p.jeb222307.
Orr, TJ, Burns, M, Hawkes, K, Holekamp, KE, Hook, KA, Josefson, CC, Kimmitt, AA,
Lewis, AK, Lipshutz, SE, Lynch, KS and Sirot, LK. 2020. It takes two to tango:
including a female perspective in reproductive biology. Integrative and
Comparative Biology, 60(3), pp.796-813.
KS Lynch and Ryan, M.J., 2020. Understanding the role of incentive salience in sexual
decision-making. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 60(3), pp.712-721.
KS Lynch, MM Louder, C Friesen, LA. O’Connell, CN. Balakrishnan, EK Fischer, A
Xiang, A Steele, J Shalov. 2020. Examining the disconnect between prolactin
and parental care in avian brood parasites. Genes, Brain and Behavior, p.e12653
G Cornez, J Langro, CA Cornil, J Balthazart, KS Lynch. 2020. Perineuronal nets and
parvalbumin development in brood parasitic species with delayed and socially-
guided vocal learning. Journal of Experimental Biology 223, jeb212910.
doi:10.1242/jeb.212910
KS Lynch, L O’ Connell, M Louder, C Balakrishnan and E Fischer. 2019. Understanding
the loss of maternal care in avian brood parasites using preoptic area transcriptome comparisons in brood parasitic and non-parasitic blackbirds. G3:Genes, Genomes, Genetics, 9(4), pp.1075-1084 (selected for journal cover).
MM, Louder, KS Lynch, S Lawson, CN Balakrishnan, ME Hauber. 2019. Neural
mechanisms of auditory species recognition in birds. Biological Reviews, 94(5),
pp.1619-1635.
KS Lynch, G Azieva, A Pellicano. 2018. Socially regulated estrogen in an
eavesdropping brood
parasite. General and Comparative Endocrinology, 269:166-170.
KS Lynch, M Louder and ME Hauber. 2018. Species-specific auditory forebrain
responses to non-learned vocalizations in juvenile blackbirds. Brain, Behavior
and Evolution, 91: 193-200.
KS Lynch. 2018. Region-specific neuron recruitment in the hippocampus of brown-
headed cowbirds Molothrus ater (Passeriformes: Icteridae). European Zoological
Journal, 85: .46-54.
KS Lynch, A Gaglio, E Tyler, J Coculo, M Louder, ME Hauber. 2017. A neural basis for
password-based species recognition in an avian brood parasite. Journal of
Experimental Biology: doi: 10.1242/jeb.158600.
KS Lynch. 2017. Understanding female receiver psychology in reproductive contexts.
Integrative and Comparative Biology: doi.org/10.1093/icb/icx018, p 1-11.
KS Lynch and SA MacDougall-Shackleton, 2017. Integrating cognitive, motivational,
and sensory biases underlying acoustic- and multimodal-based mate choice.
Integrative and Comparative Biology: doi.org/10.1093/icb/icx114.