Chris Risher (Associate Professor)

Dr. Risher was inspired to become a biology researcher after doing gel electrophoresis in his High School AP Biology class. He graduated with a B.S. in Biological Sciences from the Calhoun Honors College at Clemson University (South Carolina). He then went on to receive his Ph.D. from the first ever class in the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the Medical College of Georgia (now Augusta University). While at MCG, he trained in the labs of Drs. Kristen Harris (foremost expert in serial section electron microscopy) and Sergei Kirov (in vivo 2-photon light microscopy disease modeling). Also during grad school, he met and married Dr. Louise Risher. For his postdoctoral work, Dr. Risher moved to the Research Triangle of North Carolina to work in the lab of Dr. Cagla Eroglu at Duke University. There, he received training in cellular and molecular biology, mouse genetics, and fluorescence immunohistochemistry in order to investigate the mechanisms underlying astrocyte-mediated synapse formation and maturation in the developing cortex.

After moving to West Virginia to start his faculty position at Marshall in March 2018, Dr. Risher now lives in Huntington with Louise (also a faculty member at Marshall) and their daughter Abigail. He is the recipient of a 2018 NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. In 2023, he was presented with the Distinguished Alumnus Award by the Graduate School of Augusta University.

Link to CV

Faith Malone

Using spatial transcriptomics and STED microscopy to study synaptic and metabolic disruptions in prenatal opioid exposed astrocytes

Evan Akers

Investigating the role of synaptic pruning by microglia in sex-dependent patterns of cortical synaptic development

Grace Napier

Disruptions in synaptic connectivity in adolescent mouse brain following prenatal opioid exposure

Joshua Hardesty

Developing novel pipelines for using super-resolution microscopy to study tripartite synaptic dysfunction in prenatal opioid exposed cortex

Lab Alumni