Dr. Anita Burgos was a graduate student in the Neurobiology and Behavior Program from 2011-2017. During her doctoral work in the Grueber lab, she identified an interneuron type that was a part of the larval escape circuitry. Anita was an NSF Graduate Fellow and an NRSA predoctoral fellow. Anita pivoted to a career in health care policy through the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) legislative branch policy fellowship, where she worked on health care policy for U.S. Senator Tina Smith in Washington D.C. Anita continued her career in health care policy working as a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, focusing on mental health and substance use disorder policy. Anita returned to Capitol Hill from 2021-2023 to work as the Senior Health Policy Advisor for Congresswoman Robin Kelly. Now, Anita combines her neuroscience training, mental health care policy expertise, and lived experience as a mental health caregiver, to shape federal policy as the Director of Policy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Shin, G. J., Pero, M. E., Hammond, L. A., Burgos, A., Kumar., A., Galindo S. E., Lucas T., Bartolini, F., Grueber, W. B. (2021) Integrins protect sensory neurons in models of paclitaxel-induced peripheral sensory neuropathy. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A doi: 10.1073/pnas.2006050118
Burgos, A., Honjo, K., Ohyama, T., Qian, C. S., Shin, G., Gohl, D., Silies, M., Tracey, W.D., Zlatic, M., Cardona, A., and Grueber, W.B. Nociceptive interneurons control modular motor pathways to promote escape behavior in Drosophila. eLife (2018) Mar 12;7. pii: e26016. doi: 10.7554/eLife.26016.