Peter Kalivas, Ph.D., has assumed the position of chairman of the Department of Physiology and director of the neurosciences program.

Kalivas, a California native, received his undergraduate degree in biology from Western Washington University in 1974. He earned his doctorate in pharmacology from the University of Washington-Seattle. In 1982, he completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Kalivas worked as an assistant professor of pharmacology at Louisiana State University Medical Center. He returned to the West Coast and served as an assistant professor in Washington State University’s Department of Comparative Anatomy, Pharmacology and Physiology. At Washington State, he was named director of the university’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program in 1990, and was elevated to full professorship later that year.

Kalivas’ goals at MUSC will be to guide and coordinate education-research programs in neurosciences. His interest and experience in sensory neurosciences will help lead and focus research towards addiction neurosciences and glial-neuronal communication. His successful research career has successfully attracted more than $4 million in grants and extramural support from public and private sources.

An accomplished author of more than 150 peer-reviewed papers, Kalivas’ work has appeared in a number of the world’s leading neuroscience and neuropharmacology journals. He currently sits on various editorial boards and grant review committees of seven professional periodicals ranging from Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and Neuropsychopharmacology.