Dr. Scott Kanoski is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Southern California who studies the neurobiology of food intake control and learning and memory function. His research is focused on discovering the underlying neural systems that regulate higher-order aspects of eating behavior (e.g., learned, cognitive, reward), and to understand how these neural systems are impacted by dietary and metabolic factors. Drawing on his broad training in psychology and behavioral neuroscience from the University of Illinois (B.S.), Purdue University (M.S.; PhD) and the University of Pennsylvania (postdoctoral fellow), Kanoski’s research applies multiple levels of analysis in rodent models, including behavioral, neuroanatomical, molecular, functional imaging, viral-based genetic, and neuropharmacological approaches. He has received several awards from the two premier scientific organizations focusing on obesity and ingestive behavior research [The Obesity Society and The Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (SSIB)], and has served in leadership roles on multiple committees in each of these organizations, including as the immediate past president of SSIB. Kanoski’s research program, continually funded by the National Institutes of Health for the past 15 years, has identified the hippocampus as a critical neural substrate responding to endocrine, neuropeptide, gut microbiome, and vagus nerve-mediated signals to regulate memory function and eating behavior. His work has further revealed mechanisms through which the hippocampus is highly vulnerable to consumption of an unhealthy “Western diet”, particularly when consumed during early life periods of development. Results from these ongoing research projects are advancing knowledge of the neurobiological connections between memory function, metabolism, eating behavior.