Tracy Bale

Tracy Bale is an American neuroscientist and molecular biologist. Bale is a professor and Director of the Center for Epigenetic Research in Child Health and Brain Development at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her research has centered on the role of parental, prenatal, and early life stress on the developing brain and subsequent behavior throughout the lifespan. She is also the current President of the International Brain Research Organization.
Early life and education.
Tracy Bale received her B.S. from Washington State University in molecular biology and genetics in 1992. After taking a gap year, she then began her doctoral studies in Neurobiology at the University of Washington, studying under Daniel Dorsa. She received her Ph.D. in 1997. She then became a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, researching neuroendocrinology under the supervision of Wylie Vale.
Career and research.
Bale joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 2003. While at the University of Pennsylvania, she became co-director of the Penn Center for the Study of Sex and Gender in Behavioral Health and the Director of Research for the BIRCWH Faculty Scholars and of the Neuroscience Center at the School of Veterinary Medicine. In 2017, she moved her lab to the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Bale's research focuses on parental prenatal stress and how it can affect offspring in a myriad of ways, mostly in terms of brain development and behavior. She has examined these questions for the perspective of both mothers and fathers. When mothers experience stress during the first stage of development, their offspring tend to be more sensitive to stress themselves. In fathers, these changes result from epigenetics, where microRNAs can change the epigenetic marks of sperm coming from stressed fathers.