Nicole Baganz, Ph.D., M.S.

Biography: Nicole L. Baganz, Ph.D., M.S., is Assistant Director and Director of Community Engagement at the Florida Atlantic University Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute, where she directs ASCEND (Advancing STEM-Community Engagement through Neuroscience Discovery). She holds a secondary appointment as Research Assistant Professor of Biomedical Science in FAU’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. Her work bridges neuroscience research, education, and public partnership to make knowledge about the brain and mental health accessible and meaningful to people of all ages.

Dr. Baganz brings a deep scientific foundation to this work. She earned her Ph.D. in physiology, with an emphasis in neuroscience, at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where her dissertation identified organic cation transporter 3 (OCT3) as a stress-sensitive mechanism for serotonin clearance and a potential alternative target for antidepressant treatment — work recognized with the Armand J. Guarino Award, the institution’s highest honor for a graduating doctoral student. As a postdoctoral fellow in neuropharmacology at Vanderbilt University, working with Dr. Randy Blakely, she studied how immune and inflammatory signals alter serotonin transporter function and mood-related behavior, supported by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award. Her research has been published as first-author work in journals including PNAS and The Journal of Neuroscience.

Since joining FAU in 2016 as a founding member of the Stiles-Nicholson Brain Institute, she established ASCEND and built the Institute’s community engagement enterprise from the ground up. The network brings neuroscience into South Florida schools and communities, with an emphasis on Title I schools; its signature traveling program, MobileMinds, received the 2026 Palm Beach Illustrated Education Award for Innovation. She also founded and directs Brainy Days, a month-long celebration of neuroscience, brain health, and mental wellness, and created the Institute’s first postdoctoral positions devoted to community engagement — believed to be among the first of their kind nationally — mentoring an emerging team of scientist-communicators.

Her public work has been recognized with the Society for Neuroscience’s Next Generation Award, given annually to one postdoctoral scientist worldwide for public communication of neuroscience, a Woman Leader in STEM Award, and the FAU President’s Award for Outstanding Community Engaged Service. She is a featured scientist in the 2026 PBS documentary The Resilient Brain, which she helped bring to the screen by proposing it be built around the Institute’s resilience framework for brain health. A frequently invited speaker on topics ranging from mental wellness and brain fitness to NeuroArts, she delivered the 2026 keynote at the Florida School Health Association Annual Conference. She serves on the Board of Directors of NAMI Palm Beach County and as a scientific consultant to the Cox Science Center & Aquarium’s “Journey Through the Human Brain” exhibit. Across her research and public work, she is guided by a simple conviction: “Know science, no stigma.”