Nicole Calakos, MD, PhD, is the Lincoln Financial Group Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology and chief of the movement disorders section in neurology at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Calakos received her bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley, MD and PhD degrees from Stanford University and she completed residency in neurology at University of California, San Francisco. She studies mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in the basal ganglia, the brain circuit impaired in Parkinson’s disease. The Calakos lab has advanced understanding of habit formation, compulsive behavior and movement disorders and generated new methodologies to study basal ganglia physiology. Dr. Calakos is a National Academy of Medicine member, American Association for the Advancement of Sciences fellow, and 2023 Korsmeyer award recipient from the American Society of Clinical Investigation. She advocates for basic and translational neuroscience through activities that have included: American Neurological Association, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, NIH study sections and scientific advisory boards for disease foundations.