Christianne Strang is a board-certified art therapist with 25 years of clinical art therapy experience. She earned her MA in Art Therapy from Vermont College of Norwich University in 1987, and has served as treasurer for the American Art Therapy Association and for the Art Therapy Credentials Board. In July 2015 she will take office as the President-Elect of the American Art Therapy Association.
Dr. Strang received her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2004, followed by a position as a Research Associate in the lab of Dr. Kent Keyser. She joined the Faculty of the Department of Vision Sciences at UAB in May 2011. Dr. Strang’s primary research focus is the study of the expression patterns and physiological roles of nicotinic and muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in the retina. Her work uses RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and fluorescence microscopy to identify the complement of AChR mRNA transcripts and proteins in the mammalian retina, and patch clamp electrophysiology to characterize the effects of AChR activation on basic retinal processing.
Recently, Dr. Strang has begun extending her research towards increased clinical relevance using molecular, imaging, and electrophysiological techniques to characterize the pathophysiological changes in the retinas of transgenic mice that serve as a model for Alzheimer’s disease. She is actively involved in the didactic and laboratory training of students in the Departments of Vision Sciences, Psychology, and Neurobiology, and received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching in March of 2015. She is co-course director for the UAB introductory undergraduate and graduate introductory neurobiology courses held at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab.
