Kristen Funk graduated with a B.A. in Zoology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned her PhD at Ohio State University, where she studied Tau pathology in Alzheimer’s disease under the guidance of Dr. Jeff Kuret. Her first postdoctoral position with Dr. Marc Diamond at Washington University in St Louis focused on the role of microglia in immunotherapies targeting Tau pathology. Her second postdoctoral position with Dr. Robyn Klein also at Washington University in St Louis focused on the importance of microglia and their interactions with CD8+ T cells during West Nile virus encephalitis. She joined the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2019 as an Assistant Professor. Work in the Funk lab focuses on the impact of acute neuroinflammation caused by viral encephalitis on long-term cognitive sequelae and the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease.