Melissa Farmer

Dr. Melissa A. Farmer is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology. She joined the Apkarian lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow in April 2011 to lead Northwestern University’s neuroimaging data collection and analysis for the Multi-Disciplinary Approach to the Study of Chronic Pelvic Pain (MAPP) Research Network (www.mappnetwork.org). The MAPP Network is an aggressive, multi-center effort to conduct large-scale epidemiological, neuroimaging, and basic science investigations in populations with urological chronic pelvic pain syndromes (UCPPS), including chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS) in men and bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis (BPS/IC) in men and women.

Her ongoing collaborations with Dr. A. Vania Apkarian have included a clinical treatment trial to compare male pelvic pain relief with d-Cycloserine versus placebo, as well as clinical research focused on the psychophysiology and neural mechanisms of vulvodynia pain, in collaboration with Drs. Petra Schweinhardt and Irv Binik at McGill University. She is a member of the International Association for the Study of Pain, scientific program committee chair for the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health, and a member of the distinguished International Academy for Sex Research.

Curriculum Vitae

Contact Melissa at: melissa-farmer@northwestern.edu