Jill B. Becker

Jill B. Becker is the Patricia Y. Gurin Collegiate Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan's Department of Psychology. Her research focuses on sex differences in neural systems mediating drug abuse and motivation, particularly the role of estradiol in dopamine regulation. She investigates how ovarian hormones influence drug-taking behaviors in rats, with recent work on cocaine and methamphetamine addiction mechanisms. Funded by NIH and NSF grants, her lab employs techniques like in vivo microdialysis and fast-scan cyclic voltammetry.

Education: Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois. Awards include the Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology's Daniel S. Lehrman Lifetime Achievement Award (2025). Research highlights include studies on social housing effects on drug motivation and estradiol's rapid impact on neural circuits. Her work bridges basic neuroscience with clinical observations, noting women's faster drug escalation compared to men.

Labs/Teams: Becker Lab. Grants: Current NIH/NSF funding. Future work includes expanding sex-based research methodologies and exploring estradiol's role in reward systems.