Dr. Lotfipour received a United States Fulbright fellowship to pursue a Masters degree in opioid pharmacology at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. Subsequently, he pursued a Ph.D. at the University of California-Irvine on the mechanisms of tobacco addiction and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Nottinham, U.K., on the effects of maternal cigarette smoking on the brain and behavior of adolescent offspring. Now as a T-32 scholar and Friends Fellow at the Semel Institute, Dr. Lotfipour focuses his research interests on the role of nicotinic receptors in mediating substance use in young adults with a specific emphasis on the consequences of prenatal exposure to maternal cigarette smoking.