Dr. Kliethermes earned a B.S. in Psychology and Biology from Lincoln University, and a Ph.D. Behavioral Neuroscience from Oregon Health & Science University. His primary areas of study are behavior genetics and neuropharmacology. Dr. Kliethermes teaches introductory psychology, introduction to neuroscience, research methods in neuroscience, behavior genetics, and neurochemistry.
His research models aspects of alcohol abuse and dependence in the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster. Current studies focus on the identification of genes and neural circuits that underlie behavior in measures of physical dependence and acute responses to alcohol, and on characterizing genes and neurobiological systems that co-regulate responses to food and ethanol.
