Kimberly Scearce-Levie, PhD is a senior scientist at Genentech, where she leads the pre-clinical translational neuroscience group and conducts research in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. She received a BA in cognitive sciences from Harvard University. After working briefly as a science writer, she entered the graduate program in neurobiology and behavior at Columbia University, where she began her career-long fascination with the biological basis of complex behavior.

After working to understand the role of serotonin receptor signaling in addiction, she moved on to the Gladstone Institutes at UCSF. Her initial post-doctoral work used engineered G-protein coupled receptors to explore the relationship between specific signaling pathways and complex behavior in models. In 2005, she became director of the behavioral core laboratory at Gladstone, developing protocols for assessing pathophysiology in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, schizophrenia and autism.