Molly McGuire is a research coordinator in the Clinical Neurotrauma Laboratory at Indiana University. She holds a B.S. in Cognitive Science from Indiana University and an M.S. in Molecular Science and Software Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her interdisciplinary training bridges computational methods, chemistry, and neuroscience research. As a former Hoosier on the Women’s Water Polo team, she values teamwork and impact — highlighted by recording seven assists in a single game, tying for the second/third most in program history.

Her research with the Kawata Lab examines the neurological and psychological effects of emerging sexual behaviors. She focuses on consensual sexual strangulation to better understand how repetitive exposure may affect brain health. Her current work investigates injury-related biomarkers (e.g., NfL, GFAP), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures of white matter integrity, and reward activation paradigms such as the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). Broadly, she is interested in whether neural injury and reward circuitry function as parallel processes or interacting mechanisms within neurotrauma, and how these systems relate to mental health outcomes. She plans to continue integrating biomarker, neuroimaging, behavioral, and clinical data to advance understanding of neurotrauma in understudied areas and underrepresented populations.