Eric Thrailkill

Eric Thrailkill is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on behavioral neuroscience mechanisms related to public health challenges like substance abuse, obesity, and anxiety disorders. He employs both animal models and human laboratory studies to investigate habit learning, decision-making, and behavior change processes.

Thrailkill holds a B.S. from Arizona State University (2006), an M.S. from Utah State University (2011), and a Ph.D. from Utah State University (2013). His work bridges preclinical behavioral neuroscience with clinical applications, developing tools to translate findings across species.

Key research interests include understanding how stress influences habitual behaviors, particularly in female rats, and exploring decision-making biases like loss aversion that predict smoking behavior across demographic groups. He has published extensively on operant conditioning, extinction protocols, and the neural mechanisms underlying goal-directed versus habitual actions.

Recent work examines nicotine product substitution efficacy, clustering of behavioral economic biases, and temporal dynamics in operant behavior. His research integrates findings from rodent models with human experimental studies to advance translational addiction science.