Rate My Professor Peter Kitchener

Associate Professor Peter Kitchener serves in the Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He has been affiliated with the university since 1998, beginning as a Lecturer and advancing to his current position as Associate Professor. Kitchener earned his PhD in Science from the University of Western Australia. In his academic roles, he acts as the Neuroscience Discipline Coordinator, Honours Coordinator for the department, and contact person for course planning and student resources in anatomy and neuroscience. In October 2021, he was appointed to lead the Master of Biomedical Science program. He also coordinates the Neuroscience major within the Bachelor of Science and contributes to the Bachelor of Biomedicine, providing hands-on learning in anatomy through prosected specimens and dissection, as well as studies in cellular biology including brain cells.

Peter Kitchener's research centers on neuroscience, neuroanatomy, and physiology, with contributions to topics such as the regulation of sensory innervation of skin through trophic control of collateral sprouting, functional evidence for ghrelin receptors in preganglionic sympathetic vasoconstrictor neurons, reflex control of rat tail sympathetic nerve activity by abdominal temperature, plasticity of cutaneous primary afferent projections to the spinal dorsal horn, and development of neuronal connections following spinal cord transection in the neonatal opossum Monodelphis domestica. His key publications include 'Regulation of the Sensory Innervation of Skin: Trophic Control of Collateral Sprouting,' 'Functional and in situ hybridization evidence that preganglionic sympathetic vasoconstrictor neurons express ghrelin receptors,' 'What Neuroscientists Think, and Don’t Think, About Consciousness,' 'Reflex control of rat tail sympathetic nerve activity by abdominal temperature' (2014), 'Selective labelling of primary sensory afferent terminals in lamina II of the dorsal horn by injection of Bandeiraea simplicifolia Isolectin B4 into peripheral nerves' (1993), 'Distribution and colocalization of choline acetyltransferase immunoreactivity and NADPH diaphorase reactivity in neurons within the medial septum and diagonal band of Broca in the rat basal forebrain' (1993), 'Plasticity of cutaneous primary afferent projections to the spinal dorsal horn' (1996), 'Development of Walking, Swimming and Neuronal Connections after Complete Spinal Cord Transection in the Neonatal Opossum, Monodelphis domestica' (1998), and 'Development of motoneurons and primary afferents in the thoracic and lumbar spinal cord of the South American opossum Monodelphis domestica' (1999). His 42 publications have received over 940 citations.