Kara Marshall, PhD wins 2026 McKnight Scholar Award

Dr. Kara Marshall, investigator at the Duncan NRI and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine has been named one of the 2026 McKnight Scholars.  

This award will support the Marshall lab's research in mechanosensation which is taking a new angle on a difficult problem: how do sensations within the body contribute to anxiety and fear states? When afraid or anxious, our pounding hearts and churning stomachs are often the first indicators. Many who study fear and anxiety study the brain directly, but how bodily sensations contribute to these emotion states is not known.  This award supports an ambitious new project that will piece apart precise sensory mechanisms that detect heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and more, and test how they shape fear and anxiety. 

The McKnight Foundation awards 10 Neuroscience Scholars each year who are doing some of the most fundamental neuroscience research in the country.  For more information please visit The McKnight Foundation