I received my PhD from Oregon State University in 1988 and completed my postdoctoral training in pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1992. Thereafter, I joined the Department of Pediatrics at the UMMC and worked as a faculty member there, starting from the rank of an instructor all the way through to the rank of a tenured professor. My research has been focused on mechanisms and potential treatments of brain injury, especially white matter injury associated with perinatal hypoxia-ischemia and infection/inflammation and my work has been continuously funded by two NIH R01 grants since 1997. We found in our recent studies that perinatal insults such as brain inflammation may result in not only acute injury, but also long-lasting anatomic and functional alterations. These changes may contribute to late onset neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s isease (PD).  My research goal is to explore the detailed links between perinatal central inflammation and neurodegenerative disease like PD in late life and develop potential preventive or therapeutic strategies for these diseases.