Kathie L. Olsen

Kathie L. Olsen is an American neuroscientist who is noted for her work in scientific policy. Since August 2005, she has been the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the National Science Foundation.

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Education

Olsen obtained a B.S. degree in biology and psychology in 1974 from Chatham College, graduating with honors. She then obtained her doctoral degree at the University of California, Irvine in neuroscience in 1979 with her doctoral thesis, titled Hormonal mechanisms controlling the development and regulation of male-female differences. Upon obtaining her doctorate she accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Neuroscience at Children's Hospital Boston of Harvard Medical School.

Career

Following her doctorate, Olsen worked as a research scientist at the Long Island Research Institute while holding an Assistant Professorship at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Stony Brook Medical School.

Subsequently she served as a program officer for neuroscience at the National Science Foundation.

She served as Chief Scientist of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from May 1999 to April 2002.

Distinctions

In 2003, Olsen was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Significant publications

• Hormonal mechanisms controlling the development and regulation of male-female differences, Doctoral thesis, 1979

See also

• National Science Foundation
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Education links

• Chatham College
  • Department of Biology
  • Department of Psychology