Rate My Professor Ana Pocivavsek

Ana Pocivavsek, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Neuroscience at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Columbia, where she joined the faculty in 2018. She earned her B.S. in Psychology from Duke University and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Georgetown University. Prior to her appointment at the University of South Carolina, she completed postdoctoral training at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of South Carolina School of Medicine, and served as an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

As a neuroscience professor, Dr. Pocivavsek examines the cellular and molecular mechanisms responsible for the interaction between sleep and cognitive function. Her research specializes in the neurobiology of kynurenic acid and the kynurenine pathway, investigating their roles in sleep disturbances, cognitive deficits, and mental illness across the lifespan, particularly during critical developmental periods such as pregnancy, childhood, and adolescence. In her laboratory, she studies how poor sleep quality contributes to impairments in behavioral outcomes like cognition, learning, and memory, and develops therapeutic strategies targeting kynurenic acid synthesis, including KAT II inhibitors. Key publications include "Neuroactive Kynurenines as Pharmacological Targets: New Experimental Tools and Exciting Therapeutic Opportunities" (Pharmacological Reviews, 2024, co-authored with Robert Schwarcz and Sophie Erhardt), "Reducing Brain Kynurenic Acid Synthesis Precludes Kynurenine Pathway-Related Sleep and Cognitive Deficits" (Journal of Sleep Research, 2023), a study on KAT II inhibition in Translational Psychiatry (2023), and "Parental kynurenine 3-monooxygenase genotype in mice directs sex-specific behavioral outcomes in offspring" (Biology of Sex Differences, 2025). She has received major National Institutes of Health funding, including a four-year grant in 2024 examining maternal sleep impacts on offspring health. Dr. Pocivavsek was honored with the 2022 Breakthrough Star award from the University of South Carolina Office of the Vice President for Research for early-career research excellence. Her scholarship has amassed over 2,800 citations with an h-index of 30, establishing her influence through collaborations in neuroscience, engineering, and artificial intelligence.