Eric Wiertelak is the director of Macalester's Cognitive and Neuroscience Studies program. A past-president of Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience (the international organization devoted to neuroscience education and research at the undergraduate level), he is a behavioral neuroscientist and conducts behavioral and physiological research to investigate how environmental stressors and learning impact on neurophysiological response mechanisms, such as pain modulation. The current focus of his lab is the systematic investigation of the claimed psychoactive effects of natural remedies and aromatherapeutic agents. This work is funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. EDUCATION: B.A., University of Central Florida, 1989; M.A., University of Colorado, 1991; Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1993. Wiertelak has been teaching at Macalester since 1993.