Tracy Bale is Director of the Center for Brain Development and Maternal Mental Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She was formerly Professor of Neuroscience at University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Department of Psychiatry of the Perelman School of Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the role of stress dysregulation in neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric diseases, and the sex differences that underlie disease vulnerability using mice as the model organism. She is a co-director of the Penn Center for the Study of Sex and Gender in Behavioral Health. She is currently a Reviewing Editor at the Journal of Neuroscience and serves as Chair of the NNRS CSR study section. Tracy has been the recipient of the career development award for early career achievement by the Society for Neuroscience, the Richard E. Weitzman Memorial award as exceptionally promising young investigator by the Endocrine Society, the Medtronic Award from the Society for Women’s Health Research for outstanding research, and the Daniel H. Efron award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.