Eugenia Fuenzalida

Director, Behavioral Neuroscience and Performance Center

Faculty, Cellular & Behavioral Neurobiology

Senior Fellow, Center for Intelligence and National Security

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Dr. Fuenzalida serves as the Director of the Behavioral Neuroscience and Performance Center (BNPC) and a Senior Fellow of the Center for Intelligence and National Security. She is also a faculty member in the Cellular and Behavioral Neurobiology Graduate Program, and an Associate Professor of Psychology. Periodically, she also teaches courses for Human Relations (Clinical Mental Health Track), Organizational Dynamics, and Liberal Studies Graduate Programs. 

As a multi-disciplinary scholar, Fuenzalida's research is interdisciplinary and combines the study of stress, resilience, individual differences, and cognition. For the last 25 years her research team has focused on the study of individual differences and the emotional, psychological and physical impact of stress. Specifically, her team has been interested in the identification of risk factors that enhance or degrade performance and recovery from physiological and psychological stressors. This innovative research has leveraged state-of-the-art computer-based technology for assessing neurocognitive performance. Fuenzalida has also studied the behavioral aspects of personality (traits with biological and perceptual bases) and individual 
differences and their mediating effects on performance in response to stress. 

More recently, she and her students have focused on optimizing learning and resilience in children with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The results of their work have aided in developing a program proposal that fosters confidence and teaches problem-solving and decision-making strategies to support life-long learning, self-determination, social engagement, and independence.