Harry MacKay

About me

Welcome! My name is Harry MacKay and I’m a behavioural science fellow currently working at Impact Canada within the Privy Council Office. Here, I work to optimize policy design and implementation using the principles of behavioural science.

My background is in the study of how the brain’s feeding and metabolic circuitry develops from an epigenetic and neuroanatomical perspective. I am particularly interested in the application of next-gen sequencing methods (bisulfite-seq, RNA-seq, ATAC-seq, etc.,) and bioinformatics to questions in developmental neuroepigenetics. During graduate school I taught several courses in the Neuroscience department, and I also do a bit of graphic design, woodworking, and electronics, so I’ve included examples of these projects as well.

Skills & Experience

Education:

St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish NS
- Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours (Psychology), 2009
Carleton University, Ottawa, ON
- M.Sc. Psychology (specialization in neuroscience), Fast-tracked into Ph.D. program
Carleton University, Ottawa, ON
- Ph.D. Neuroscience, 2015

Research interests:

Neuroendocrinology of body weight homeostasis
Epigenetics
Neurodevelopment
Stress
Circadian rhythms
Neuroanatomy
Endocrine disrupting compounds
Adipose tissue function

Techniques:

qRT-PCR
Immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence
Conventional histology
Confocal microscopy
Stereology
Western blot
Flow cytometry, FACS
Indirect calorimetry
Next-gen sequencing

Software:

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
MS Office
SPSS
Graphpad Prism
LaTeX
Arduino
Sketchup
R

Other skills and interests:

Graphic design
Furniture design
Carpentry
Arduino/electronics design
Playing music (guitar)

CV

Click here for my CV

Contact

Email: harry.m@gmail.com

Twitter: @hmack84

NEUR3301: Genetics of Mental Health

Courses

August 18, 2023/by harry

I designed and taught this course in the Fall of 2021. Here, I aimed to give students a survey of the methods used in genomics, transcriptomics, and epigenomics and how they are applied to questions of mental health and neurological disease. Similar to my introductory courses, after...

The Neuroscience of Concussions

Videos

November 5, 2016/by harry

I originally made this video for the Fall 2014 session of NEUR1201 at Carleton. I knew I would be missing one lecture due to my attendance at the Society for Neuroscience meeting that week, but I didn't want to cancel class. This video was made in the 'sped up...

NEUR4200: Seminar on Current Research in Neuroscience

Courses

April 13, 2016/by harry

I taught Carleton University's advanced neuroscience seminar as a contract instructor in the Winter 2014 semester. This course is intended for 4th year undergraduates in Carleton's Neuroscience and Mental Health program. This course was mainly intended to develop skills in writing and presenting, as well as interpreting the scientific...

NEUR1201: Introduction to Mental Health and Disease

Courses

April 13, 2016/by harry

I taught four semesters of NEUR1201 from Fall 2013-Summer 2015. This is Carleton's introductory neuroscience course, intended for students beginning the Neuroscience and Mental Health program, as well as students from other programs interested in the brain and mental health. In addition to designing the course content (following in the...

HARRY MACKAY

Education:

Research interests:

Techniques:

Software:

Other skills and interests:

RESEARCH

TEACHING

PROJECTS