Wayne E. Pratt is an associate professor of psychology who arrived at Wake Forest in 2006.

He received his Bachelor of Arts in psychology from the University of Vermont in 1994 before earning his Master’s in 1997 and his Ph.D in 2002, both from

Adrian Martino/Old Gold Black

the University of Utah.

Pratt is currently on sabbatical, during which he is doing research funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse that uses rats as experimental models to study the brain’s role in promoting food intake, which is a potential underlying factor of the modern obesity epidemic.

 

When did you first become interested in psychology? Did you always know you wanted to teach?

 

It was really the interest I developed in high school in human behavior and the pairing of that with biology and physics that I got when I took a biopsychology class in college.

I initially expected to go into clinical psychology [but] when I took that course I realized that this was a more appropriate fit of a field for me.

Then I got involved in a lab where I actually got to do some [research], and that lit the spark that led me down that path towards becoming a professor.

In terms of motivation, I always wanted to be the professor that inspires the students like I was at the University of Vermont, that gets them to think ahead and move towards their interests.

 

Did you choose Wake Forest because of its unique teacher-scholar model?

 

I chose to come to Wake Forest because of its particular blend.

It’s an interesting blend, and it’s not necessarily an easy blend. I really like the aspect that I’m not just doing the science in my own room by myself.

I like the idea that my science actually serves an educational role as well. I’m doing real science that gets published with undergraduate students, [and] those experiences have the potential of opening doors for them.

My favorite part of the whole thing is when students are graduating and applying to graduate schools or fellowship programs or medical schools or wherever their next step is.

I get the most joy from hearing back from them when they get their acceptance letter or when they finally find that job that they were looking for.

That’s it. It feels like all the work, all the science, all the teaching goes into getting students to the next step in their development. That’s where I find the most joy.

 

In layman’s terms, how would you describe the research you are doing now?

 

I’m very interested in researching how the brain drives food intake and food motivation.

My research focuses on trying to understand the underlying biology that causes people to eat more food than they need to in order to survive. [For example,] what is it about that Krispy Kreme doughnut that makes you eat a second one even though your caloric needs for the moment have been filled by the first one?

It ties into the obesity epidemic and trying to understand what keeps us eating long after our body has told us — if we were listening to it — that we’ve had enough for the time being.

 

What is it like working with lab rats?

 

Unlike the pillows we sleep on, rats are actually hyperallergenic. Between 30 and 40 percent of people who work with them regularly develop allergies.

Unfortunately, that includes me and often my students.

When I’m working in the lab, I wear a full lab coat, gloves, sleeve protectors and a respirator — like Darth Vader, only all in white.

 

How do you balance conducting your own research with helping your students conduct experiments of their own?

 

I have the opportunity to mentor honors students and master’s students.

Both of those types of students have brought ideas into my lab that they want to look into.

Most of the work that I do is about injecting drugs into specific brain regions and trying to determine whether or not those drugs impact the feeding or the willingness to work for food.

I had a couple of students who came into the honors program and wanted to work with me but were interested more in the clinical side of things.

Together we developed a series of experiments that looked at clinically relevant drugs.

Most students come into the lab and work on the grant projects for a period of time, most commonly a year. At that point I’ve taught them what my lab is capable of doing, and they have a good sense for the ongoing projects.

I keep my projects going on with the help of the students rotating in and out of the lab.

More than occasionally I have a student there long enough who comes up with an idea of their own.

We explore whether or not it’s feasible, and I work with them to try and complete that project.

 

Why should students take a psychology class?

 

I think psychology is important because it helps us to understand better our own behaviors and the behavior of people around us.

The benefit of understanding psychology is that we ultimately go into the world and are surrounded by people we have to work with.

Having a basic understanding of what constrains and motivates behavior, which one learns in psychology classes, is a benefit whether you decide to go into a Ph.D. program in psychology or whether you decide to go into the marketplace and work with people to develop ideas that hopefully turn into profit.