Claudia Manca

My name is Claudia Manca, I’m a 3rd year PhD student in the psychology program. I joined the Bales lab in the fall of 2021, and I currently work with the titi monkeys. Prior to joining the lab, I was part of Dr. Jeff French’s lab at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) where I worked with marmosets. I graduated from UNO in the spring of 2020 with a degree in neuroscience. During my undergraduate studies, I volunteered in the French lab and worked on a project investigating the comodulation of social buffering by oxytocin and dopamine in marmosets. After graduating, I worked in the French lab as a research assistant while busy applying for graduate school.

My research interests include the neurobiology of social behavior in monogamous species, social buffering, social separation, and pair bonds. Right now, I’m working on a project investigating oxytocin and kappa opioid interactions in the context of social isolation and social buffering in titis. When I’m not in the lab, you can find me traveling back to Italy to visit my family, reading, working out, and enjoying time outside!

Feel free to reach out on Twitter: @ClaudiaManca7 or email me at cmanca@ucdavis.edu

Publications:

Bales, K., Hang, S., Paulus, J., Jahanfard, E., Manca, C., Jost, G., Boyer, C., Bern, R., Yerumyan, D.,
Rogers, S., Mederos, S. Individual Differences in Social Homeostasis. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 2023

Manca, C., & Bales, K.L. Adult Social Relationships in Primate Societies. In Heather K. Caldwell & H. Elliot Albers (Eds.), Neuroendocrinology of Behavior and Emotions. Springer. (In prep)