Our Faculty
The UAB College of Arts and Sciences Psychology Advanced Interdisciplinary Nociception (PAIN) Collective was formed in 2017. The founding members of the PAIN Collective are Burel Goodin, Robert Sorge, Zina Trost and Jarred Younger. Together, our work spans the following areas of pain research: racial disparities, rehabilitative medicine, low back pain, knee pain, Gulf War Illness, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, botanical treatments, diet interventions, drug interactions and basic science. As a group we are dedicated to the development of treatments that lessen the burden of chronic pain for all.
Robert Sorge
Born in a little hamlet in rural Canada, Dr. Sorge spent the majority of his life in the north. He completed a Bachelor’s degree in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 2000 under the supervision of Dr. Geoff Galef (environmental enrichment), a Master’s degree from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada under Dr. Linda Parker (THC and nausea, 2001) and a PhD from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 2006 under Dr. Jane Stewart (heroin and cocaine addiction). Continuing his love for Montreal, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University under Dr. Paul Clarke (nicotine addiction, 2009) and under Dr. Jeff Mogil (genetics and pain, 2012). He started at UAB in the Department of Psychology in the summer of 2012 and has been here ever since.
He is most interested in the immune system and its role in chronic pain. His lab is focused on pathways involved in inflammation as well as investigating the ways in which diet affects the immune system and alters recovery from injury. His lab is also examining the potential of diet interventions to be used for pain reduction in human patients.
Zina Trost
Dr. Trost received her Bachelor’s in Psychology in 2003 from Fordham University in New York City where she grew up. She received her doctorate in Clinical Health Psychology from Ohio University in Athens, OH where she first began to explore her interests in chronic pain and illness. During her internship at the University of Washington Medical Center Dr. Trost further developed interests in the area of rehabilitation psychology, particularly factors that influence individuals’ adjustment to traumatic injury.
She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in Montreal and has developed a number of international collaborations with colleagues in the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada. She joined the faculty at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in August 2015.
Jarred Younger
Jarred Younger received his Ph.D. in Experimental Psychophysiology in 2003 at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He then completed postdoctoral fellowships at Arizona State University and the Stanford University School of Medicine before taking an assistant professor position at Stanford. In 2014, he joined the faculty at the University of Alabama Birmingham, with a primary appointment in the Department of Psychology and secondary appointments in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Rheumatology. Prof. Younger’s goal is to end the chronic pain and fatigue that is caused by inflammation in the brain. He is currently funded by the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and several non-profit agencies to develop techniques for diagnosing and treating neuro-inflammation, pain, and fatigue.