Katie Travis, Ph.D.
In 2005, Katie Travis, Ph.D., was an NICHD postbac working under the mentorship of Chris McBain, Ph.D., in the Section on Cellular and Synaptic Physiology. Fast forward to today, and she is now an Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Director of the Laboratory for Language Development and Recovery at the Burke Neurological Institute, where she leads research on neurological and behavioral interventions to improve language development in children born preterm. 1
This past February, Dr. Travis returned to NICHD for an informal Science Friday talk, discussing recent progress on one of her primary research initiatives, the Listening to Mom in the NICU study. The talk was a follow-up to a 2023 publication in which Dr. Travis’ group published exciting observations that the amount of speech preterm infants experienced in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) predicted weight gain in preterm infants.2
We had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Travis about how her NICHD postbac experience affected her career trajectory. When asked what she felt was the strongest benefit of doing a postbac fellowship at the NIH, she reflected, “The postbac fellowship allows you to get experience with all sides of science. It’s important to go to the research talks that occur on campus and cover a broad range of basic, translational, and clinical science. You have an excellent opportunity to make connections that help you make decisions and choose your programs of interest.”
Like many postbacs today, Dr. Travis took advantage of the exceptional research training environment offered by NIH and the gap year experience—the room to make thoughtful career decisions. Dr. Travis faced a choice familiar to many fellows who want to understand the underlying mechanisms of human health: whether to pursue medical or doctoral training that would provide the right mix of clinical and translational research. Ultimately, she decided on translational research and sought out programs that fit her in a multidimensional way.
She added, “I was looking for a program that offered a variety of science and also a supportive social environment. You need to make sure that the program offers a fit scientifically, personally, and geographically.”
She also discussed the role of mentorship in research success, “I’ve done really good science when I’ve worked with really good people. You need to be around people who prioritize your scientific development.”
When asked how a prospective graduate student can identify a good mentor, she advised, “Talk with the mentor and with the trainees in the group. Pay attention to the feel of the conversations and the lab environment. Don’t just look at where the mentor’s trainees go after their training. Talk with them and pay attention to how they speak about the mentor. Do they speak glowingly? Or not? Do your homework on the lab and go with your gut.”
Dr. Travis conducted postdoctoral training at Stanford University in translational and clinical pediatric neuroscience, eventually leading to her promotion to Instructor in 2016 and earning the prestigious K99/R00 Pathway to Independence grant from NICHD.
In 2019, she became an Assistant Professor at Stanford and was eventually recruited to her current faculty position with Weill Cornell Medicine in 2023. In this role, she leads studies that seek to unravel the complex interplay between the social environment and brain characteristics shaping language and to identify therapies that promote brain, language, and cognitive development in children at risk for learning disabilities, particularly children born preterm.
When asked if she has any parting advice for today’s fellows as they try to shape their research vision, Dr. Travis said: “Make it what you want it to be… It’s your training and your career. That’s the beauty of the postbac experience: it helps you gain awareness of your passions and where you want to take your career.”
References
- Travis Lab. (no date). About Us. Retrieved from https://travis-lab.com/#about-us
- Kumar, K., Marchman, V.A., Morales, M.C., Scala, M., & Travis, K.E. (2023). Investigating Relations between the NICU Speech Environment and Weight Gain in Infants Born Very Preterm. American Journal of Perinatology, 10.1055/a-2023-8813.