I’m Violet M. Kimble, Ph.D., a neuroscientist and postdoctoral researcher studying how biological state shapes substance use vulnerability, behavior, and recovery. My work brings together neuroendocrinology, substance use disorder research, and clinical data science.
I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Psychiatry in the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah, where I work in the de Lacy Lab with Dr. Nina de Lacy. My postdoctoral work focuses on the development and validation of a novel psychometric instrument to assess psychological resilience in adults.
This interdisciplinary project integrates clinical, psychological, and quantitative methods, with mentorship from Dr. de Lacy in Psychiatry and Drs. Brian Baucom and Rob Lubeznik-Warner in Psychology. In this role, I conduct participant study visits, support human subjects research protocols, and contribute to statistical analysis, instrument validation, and manuscript development. This work is expanding my training in clinical research methods, psychometrics, resilience, and translational mental health research.
I earned my Ph.D. in the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Yale University. My doctoral work examined how ovarian hormones, particularly estradiol, interact with L-type calcium channel mechanisms to shape cocaine-related behaviors during abstinence. This work included studies of cue-induced cocaine seeking, anxiety-like behavior, and social behavior in female rats.
More recently, I have expanded this research into translational and clinical data science. Using OMOP-formatted electronic health record data, I study how metabolic dysfunction, including type 2 diabetes and obesity, predicts poor clinical recovery among hospitalized adults with substance use disorders. I am also interested in menopause as a critical biological period for substance use disorder risk, treatment response, and recovery, particularly as changes in ovarian hormones, metabolism, mood, sleep, and cardiometabolic health may intersect with addiction-related outcomes.
This work reflects my broader interest in building recovery-focused prediction models that account for biological context, sex-informed mechanisms, and changing clinical state over time. I am especially interested in how hormonal transitions, metabolic health, and resilience shape recovery trajectories across the lifespan.
My training began with a B.S. in Neuroscience and a minor in Statistics from Drew University. Since then, I have worked across research environments including Yale University, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, The Jackson Laboratory, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Across these experiences, I have built expertise in behavioral neuroscience, addiction biology, genomics, single-cell analysis, computational biology, statistics, and clinical prediction modeling. My published and ongoing work includes studies on L-type calcium channel mechanisms in cocaine seeking, abstinence-related anxiety-like behavior, estradiol and social withdrawal, sex differences in addiction biology, and clinical recovery prediction in hospitalized patients with substance use disorders.
In addition to research, I care deeply about teaching, mentorship, and scientific communication. I have taught and supported courses in neuroscience, biochemistry, medical AI, and systems neuroscience. I also serve as External Communications Officer for the Association for Clinical and Translational Science Scholar Special Interest Group, where I help amplify trainee voices and support communication across the translational research community.
Across my work, I return to one central question: How do internal biological states shape behavior, risk, and recovery? This site shares my research, publications, presentations, and ongoing projects.