“I’m passionate about doing whatever I can to help our Airmen and Guardians who are defending our country,” she said. ![]() ![]() Hatcher-Solis finds her career with AFRL very rewarding since her work benefits a deserving group of individuals. “If we could enhance performance or output by 20 percent across a career field, that would be a game-changer,” she noted. “Our ultimate goal is to develop and transition effective technologies for use in the operational environment such as wearable devices,” she said. While much of her research is in the basic science stage, she collaborates with others in the lab and within her field to share knowledge and build upon current findings. “Through research, we strive to optimize cognitive performance, accelerate training and improve alertness for U.S. Hatcher-Solis’ work in neuroscience has the potential to impact various career fields and applications within the Department of the Air Force such as intelligence gathering, surveillance and aerial reconnaissance, target identification, special operations missions and training of pilots. Then, we can leverage that knowledge to benefit our troops with completing their missions. “If we understand how stimulation is affecting the brain, then we can more precisely target the regions of the brain that are mediating these effects,” she explained. Hatcher-Solis runs various experiments to quantify changes in the brain and she leads experimentations on how nerve stimulation can improve learning, enhance alertness, stimulate memory and counter the effects of stress, fatigue, fear and pain. Today, her research centers on investigating bio-molecular pathways that can enhance cognitive performance. After earning her doctorate in physiology and biophysics, she completed a yearlong fellowship with the National Institutes of Health focusing on addiction and mental health before accepting a position with AFRL. Hatcher-Solis, who grew up on military bases, said she feels a strong connection to research that benefits the nation’s Airmen and Guardians. Candice Hatcher-Solis, a research biological scientist, works in the Neurobiology of Cognitive Performance Lab, part of AFRL’s 711th Human Performance Wing located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The “challenge and the quest for knowledge” keeps me excited, she said, noting that while “the field of neuroscience has made significant strides in understanding the many different functions of the brain, there’s still so much that’s not yet known.” Dr. ![]() However, what she enjoys most is unlocking mysteries and delivering meaningful results to the nation’s warfighters. Through her research, Hatcher-Solis aims to learn more about human cognition, and ultimately, she strives to identify techniques that could benefit our military. “I feel like we are on the cusp of understanding the different effects of brain stimulation, and I’m excited to contribute findings that could advance our knowledge and provide answers.” “The complexity of the brain makes this field exciting to me, and I’m interested in investigating a lot of the unknowns,” she said. More specifically, she studies transcranial direct current stimulation, exploring how noninvasive nerve stimulation can enhance learning and memory through electrodes that target specific areas of the brain. Candice Hatcher-Solis is a research biological scientist in AFRL’s 711th Human Performance Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and leads the neurobiology of cognitive performance team that investigates the effects of noninvasive brain stimulation. Corinne Sedano, a senior research aerospace engineerĭr.Candice Hatcher-Solis, a research biological scientist Read their stories below and learn more about AFRL’s work with spacecraft thrusters, chemical propellants and noninvasive brain stimulation. Through careers in STEM, women from across AFRL pursue a broad range of research and development efforts, work that ultimately provides Airmen and Guardians with new and innovative technologies that help keep the fight unfair. Meet two amazing women from the Air Force Research Laboratory, who lead the discovery, development and delivery of warfighting technologies for the United States Air Force and Space Force.
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