| Birth Place: | North Dakota |
| Occupation: | Professor, neuroscientist |
Kristen Harris is Professor of Neuroscience and Fellow in the Center for Learning and Memory at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research group at UT Austin uses serial section electron microscopy to study synapses.[1] She is also a member of the Institute for Neuroscience and the Center for Theoretical and Computational Learning.[2]
Harris was born in North Dakota. In 1976, she earned a bachelor's degree at Minnesota State University Moorhead, majoring in biology and minoring in both chemistry and mathematics. Three years later, she earned her master's degree from the University of Illinois and went on to do graduate work at Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. She obtained a PhD in neurobiology in 1982, after which she held a two-year postdoctoral position at Massachusetts General Hospital.[1]
Harris was a member of the faculty in Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital, Boston until 1999. Then she moved to Boston University where she helped to establish an inter-departmental Program in Neuroscience. In 2002, she established the Synapses and Cognitive Neuroscience Center at Medical College of Georgia. Harris was recruited to the University of Texas at Austin.[3]
Harris's research focus is to elucidate structural components involved in the cell biology of learning and memory.[2] She focuses on seven main areas of research, which include