Ann Kennedy

Dr. Ann Kennedy is an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, where she leads the Kennedy Lab. Her research focuses on theoretical neuroscience, using mathematical modeling and computational approaches to understand how neural circuits produce adaptive behaviors. She investigates how the brain integrates sensory information with survival needs to drive behavior across multiple scales, from single neurons to social groups.

Dr. Kennedy received her BS and BA in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2008, followed by a PhD in Neuroscience from Columbia University in 2014. She conducted postdoctoral research at the California Institute of Technology before establishing her independent laboratory at Northwestern in 2020.

Her research interests center on understanding the computational principles of neural circuits, particularly in subcortical brain regions involved in survival behaviors. She develops theories for distributed behavior control by multiple neural populations, studies computation in heterogeneous neural populations, and constructs richer descriptions of animal behavior using pose estimation and machine learning tools. Her work blends dynamical systems, control theory, reinforcement learning, and machine learning to investigate neural dynamics across multiple scales and model organisms.

Dr. Kennedy's recent publications reveal trends in understanding neural heterogeneity, early nervous system evolution, and the theoretical foundations of neuroscience. Her work spans from fundamental computational principles to applications in pain research and behavioral neuroscience, with increasing emphasis on translating theoretical insights to understand neurological conditions.

• Sloan Research Fellowship, Sloan Foundation (2023)
• Eppendorf and Science Prize in Neurobiology (2022)
• McKnight Scholars Award (2024)
• Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences (2024)
• Thom Young Researcher Award (2025)

Dr. Kennedy actively mentors postdoctoral researchers and collaborates with experimentalists both locally and internationally. Her lab has received significant grant support including the $75,000 Sloan Fellowship and the prestigious McKnight Scholars Award. She co-chairs the CAJAL summer school on quantitative approaches to behavior and serves as Associate Editor for Science Advances. The Kennedy Lab operates at the intersection of theory and experiment, developing community resources like the Mouse Action Recognition System (MARS) for behavioral analysis and contributing to major initiatives like the 2025 Multi-Agent Behavior Challenge on Kaggle.

The Kennedy Lab maintains active collaborations with researchers across San Diego and beyond, focusing on theoretical approaches to behavior and neural circuit function. Current projects analyze data from multiple brain regions and organisms, including hypothalamus studies of social and defensive behavior, basal ganglia research on behavior-neural activity correlations, hippocampal studies of social bond formation, and whole-organism neural imaging in cnidarians. The lab values open science, clear communication, and community resource development.