Victoria Gibbs

Dr. Gibbs completed her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Biology in the Department of Biology at UAB. Her early graduate research studied the effects of temperature on reproduction and nutrient utilization in the sea urchin while working in the laboratory of Dr. Stephen Watts. Dr. Gibbs continued in the Watts Lab for her dissertation work to further pursue her interests in aquatic animal nutrition. She specialized in evaluating dietary lipid levels and sources for sea urchin growth. She earned her Ph.D. in Biology at UAB in 2011.

In August 2011, Dr. Gibbs joined the Department of Biology at Villanova University as the Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow in Organismal Biology where she collaborated with Dr. Michael Russell to study sea urchin interactions with rocky substrata. She team-taught courses in Human Anatomy and Physiology and Biostatistics and Experiment Design while co-mentoring undergraduate research projects. Dr. Gibbs also designed and taught a course in Nutritional Biochemistry for advanced undergraduate and graduate students.

Dr. Gibbs’s experiences in the laboratory and classroom reinforced her desire to research physiological responses to nutrition and the environment using different animal models. In June 2014, she started her two-year postdoctoral fellowship at UAB in the Department of Nutrition Sciences within UAB’s Nutrition Obesity Research Center (NORC) and the UAB Obesity Training Program. Dr. Gibbs worked with Drs. Tim Nagy and Daniel Smith, Jr. in multiple longevity intervention studies using murine models to investigate the influence of environmental and nutritional interventions on behavior, energetics, body composition, and healthspan.

Educational Background

• Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham (2014-2016)
• Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, Department of Biology, Villanova University (2011-2014)
• Ph.D. Biology, Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (2011)
• M.S. Biology, Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (2005)
• B.S. Biology, Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (2003)

Research Interests

• Physiologic responses to environmental and nutritional conditions
• Individual variation in behavioral and physiologic responses to stress
• Biology of aging; Digestive physiology and growth efficiency
• Alternative animal models; Aquaculture