Sofia is a graduate student in the laboratory of Tom Kash and was awarded a three year HHMI Gilliam Fellowship. She came to UNC with a BS in Psychology from the University of Central Florida and participated in UNC PREP. Her project examines the modulation and role of corticotropin releasing hormone neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus in alcohol consumption and withdrawal from chronic alcohol. These neurons tightly regulate central and peripheral responses to stress, and have hardly been examined independently of the peripheral stress response in alcohol abuse.