Physiology of Behavior, Global Edition (PDF)

Neil R. Carlson pursued his undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois. He had planned to study nuclear physics, but when he discovered in an Introductory Psychology course that psychology was really a science, he decided that was what he wanted to do. Before changing his major, Carlson talked with several professors and visited their laboratories, and when he saw what physiological psychologists do, he knew that he had found his niche. He stayed on at Illinois and received his Ph.D. Then, after a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Iowa, Carlson came to the University of Massachusetts, where he taught throughout his entire career. He retired from UMass in the fall of 2004, but continues to keep up with developments in the field of behavioral neuroscience and to revise this book.

As an undergraduate psychology major at Cornell University, Melissa A. Birkett discovered courses in biopsychology, behavior, endocrinology, and evolutionary psychology. There, she was introduced to interdisciplinary research incorporating multiple perspectives in the challenging task of understanding behavior. She became interested in learning about behavior and its underlying mechanisms. She worked as an undergraduate research assistant in several laboratories on projects ranging from insect behavior to sleep in undergraduates. Those formative experiences and interactions with several influential research mentors convinced her to pursue a career in research.