Newman Lab
Social Neuroethology
Tufts University School of Medicine | Department of Neuroscience
Emily L. Newman, PhD
Assistant Professor in Neuroscience
Ghahreman Khodadad Professorship in Neuroscience
Director, Social Neuroethology Laboratory
Director, The Ghahreman Khodadad Center
Emily received her BSc in Psychology from Tufts University in 2010 and returned to Tufts for graduate training, earning her MSc in Experimental Psychology in 2016 and her PhD in 2020 under the mentorship of Dr. Klaus A. Miczek, PhD. During this time, she became increasingly interested in how neural circuits generate the internal emotional states that shape behavior. She then completed her postdoctoral training in neuroscience at McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School under Dr. Kerry J. Ressler, MD, PhD, where she studied the neural mechanisms underlying trauma-related behavioral changes and later served as an Instructor in Psychiatry. In 2025, Emily returned to Tufts as an Assistant Professor of Neuroscience at the Tufts University School of Medicine and is a faculty member in the Neuroscience Program at the Tufts Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She also serves as Director of The Ghahreman Khodadad Center for the Study of Excessive Pathological Selfishness.
Emily’s research is driven by a long-standing interest in understanding why social interactions can shift so dramatically—from adaptive forms of aggression, cooperation, and affiliation to social isolation, maladaptive conflict, and violence. Her work focuses on the neurobiological substrates that underlie social behavioral states and how trauma and social experience reshape these processes. By studying how aggressive behavior escalates and how the brain transitions between emotional states, she aims to better understand the biological mechanisms that contribute to cycles of violence and trauma-related psychiatric disorders.
