Dr. Kara Marshall has been awarded the 2026 McKnight…

Dr. Kara Marshall, assistant professor of neuroscience and a McNair Scholar at Baylor College of Medicine, has received the 2026 McKnight Scholar Award from the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience (MEFN). This award will support her work investigating how the body's nervous system plays a role in emotion states and behavior.

Marshall is one of 10 neuroscientists from across the country awarded this highly competitive recognition that honors early career scientists who are working on research that has immediate and significant impact on clinically relevant issues.

She was recognized for her work titled, "Understanding the contribution of internal mechanosensation to fear and anxiety," and will receive $75,000 per year for three years.

"We are so grateful for this award - not only for the direct financial support, but also because it demonstrates that a fantastic community of Neuroscientists really believes in the potential of our ambitious project to understand how sensations from our bodies shape anxiety. It's a difficult problem to understand, but we desperately need new avenues to target for therapeutic development," Marshall said. "This is just the beginning, and we are eager to build based on this support."

Her research will focus on understanding how our bodies and organs move as they perform their duties, such as a heart beating or lungs expanding and contracting. She explains that our nervous system monitors these mechanical sensations to adjust physiological responses when experiencing emotions like fear or anxiety and how that plays a role in survival, preparing one for escape or attention to danger.

Marshall's team will use PIEZO ion channels, sensors of mechanical force in mammals, as tools to specifically probe the contribution of internal mechanosensation in shaping emotion states, particularly in the context of fear and anxiety. By doing so, the team will more fully define how the body and brain are intertwined to shape behavior.

Since joining Baylor, Marshall has been named a Freeman Hrabowski Scholar by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar and was selected by the Pew Charitable Trust to join the Pew Scholars Program.

Read more about her latest research publications here.

Learn more about the McKnight Award, the MEFN and see a list of all awardees here.