Shackman Lab at the University of Maryland

09/19/2025

Calling All Curious Minds! 🧠🍷

If you drink 3 or more times a week, we need your help for our brain research!

The Shackman Lab at the University of Maryland is seeking participants for a groundbreaking study exploring the connection between anxiety and everyday alcohol consumption. Led by Dr. Alex Shackman, this research aims to uncover critical insights into how these factors interact.

You can receive up to $350 for participating AND receive high-resolution images of your brain!

To see if you qualify for any of our studies, please complete the following survey (

Unified Preliminary Screening

08/11/2025

Meet our Principal Investigator and lab director Dr. Alexander Shackman!

Dr. Shackman is an associate professor at the University of Maryland College Park, where our lab has been running for over 10 years. He has worked to create many groundbreaking studies which have been featured in Nature, The Nature of Emotion, and the Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science to name a few! Stay tuned to learn more about Alex!

06/22/2023

[Meet the Lab] Featuring our Lab Director, Dr. Alexander Shackman!

Dr. Shackman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology (Clinical and CNS Area Groups), core faculty member of the interdepartmental Neuroscience and Cognitive Science (NACS) Doctoral Program and the Maryland Neuroimaging Center (MNC), and Director of the Affective and Translational Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Maryland. His work has been continuously supported by the NIH since 2016 and led to >90 publications.

Dr. Shackman is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science; an active member of the international Affective Neuroimaging Collaboratory, ENIGMA Anxiety, and Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology (HiTOP) research consortia; and a standing member of the NIH Adult Psychopathology and Disorders of Aging (APDA) study section. He has been invited to teach and lecture at meetings and institutions around the world and has had his work featured in Discovery Magazine and Newsweek!

Most of Dr. Shackman's work is focused on understanding the nature and biological bases of anxiety-related states, traits, and disorders. When extreme, anxiety contributes to a variety of debilitating, often treatment-resistant mental illnesses, including internalizing disorders, substance misuse, and psychosis. To understand the origins and course of this liability, our group uses a broad spectrum of tools—including multimodal neuroimaging (MRI, PET), psychophysiology, smartphone digital phenotyping, semi-structured clinical and life-stress interviews, and genetic analyses—in pediatric and adult patients, university students, community members, and monkeys.

Bonus: Dr. Shackman enjoys sci-tweeting (), Maui, Sherlock Holmes, hiking, streaming underground music from the 90s, and spending time outdoors with family and friends.