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Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy Faculty

  • Jessica Ausborn, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Computational modeling of neurons and their interactions; brainstem and spinal control of locomotion and respiration; sensorimotor integration

  • Homaira Azim, MD, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Innovative teaching and learning strategies, medical humanities and medical professional identity formation

  • Peter Baas, PhD

    Professor; Director, Graduate Program in Neuroscience
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Degeneration, dysfunction, injury and repair of the nervous system

  • Jessica Barson, PhD

    Associate Professor; Assistant Dean for Mentoring and Support
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Alcohol use disorder, binge eating disorder, sex differences, individual differences, limbic system, neuropeptides, dopamine, serotonin

  • Tatiana Bezdudnaya, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Respiratory plasticity after spinal cord injury

  • Valerie Bracchi-Ricard, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Marie-Pascale Côté, PhD

    Associate Professor; Co-Director, T32 NIH Spinal Cord Injury Training Program
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Plasticity of spinal networks after spinal cord injury

  • Timothy Cunningham, PhD

    Professor Emeritus
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neuron survival and death, neuroinflammation, central nervous system repair

  • Simon Danner, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Computational modeling of neural control of locomotion

  • Dennis DePace, PhD

    Emeritus Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Megan Detloff, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neuropathic pain, spinal cord injury, neuroimmune interactions, neuroplasticity, nociceptors, behavior

  • Kimberly Dougherty, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Spinal locomotor network organization, rhythm generating mechanisms, plasticity of spinal circuits following spinal cord injury and following treatment with potential therapeutics aimed at restoring function after injury

  • Rodrigo España, PhD

    Professor and Interim Chair
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neural basis of motivated behavior, hypocretin/orexin, dopamine, norepinephrine, behavioral pharmacology, sleep/arousal, substance abuse, fast scan cyclic voltammetry, fiber photometry, multi-unit electrophysiology, optogenetics, DREADDs

  • Itzhak Fischer, PhD

    Professor Emeritus
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Cellular and molecular strategies in promoting regeneration; structure and function of neuronal cytoskeleton

  • Bill Frank, DC

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Wen-Jun Gao, MD, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Synaptic signaling in the prefrontal cortex: impact on cognition and social behaviors related to neurobiology of psychiatric disorders

  • A. Denise R. Garcia, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neurodevelopment, astrocyte biology

  • D. Leonardo Garcia Ramirez, PhD

    Instructor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Spinal neuronal circuits, spinal cord injury, plasticity, sensory processing, descending modulation of spinal cord circuits

  • Simon Giszter, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Spinal cord organization, modularity, motor primitives, control of limb biomechanics, brain machine interface (BMI), comparative motor physiology, corticospinal functions, electromyography, motor control, motor cortex, neuroengineering, neuroprosthetics, neurorobotics, neurobiology, neurorehabilitation, reflex behaviors, rehabilitation, spinal cord injury, systems neurobiology, theoretical and computational neuroscience, trunk/axial controls

  • Haviva Goldman, PhD

    Professor and Vice Chair of Medicine Education, Neurobiology & Anatomy; Assistant Dean, Phase 1 Curriculum
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Bone quality and skeletal fragility

  • John Houle, PhD

    Emeritus Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neurotransplantation strategies to promote structural and functional recovery after spinal cord injury

  • Caitlin A. Howe, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Learning strategies and technology in medical education

  • Ying Jin, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Axonal regeneration and functional recovery after spinal cord injury

  • Taegyo Kim, PhD

    Instructor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Michael Lane, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Spontaneous and therapeutically enhanced neural plasticity following cervical spinal cord injury

  • Sergey Markin, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Computational neuroscience, motor control, modeling neural control of respiration and locomotion

  • Lynnette Montgomery, PhD, BPHTY

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Dana Peterson, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Emanuela Piermarini, PhD

    Research Instructor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Liang Oscar Qiang, MD, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neurological disease modeling and potential therapies using iPSC-derived neurons, as well as other cellular reprogramming strategies

  • Ramesh Raghupathi, PhD

    Associate Dean, Health Equity Research and Innovation; Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Cell death and plasticity after traumatic injury to the mature and immature brain

  • Ilya Rybak, PhD

    Professor Emeritus
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Computational neuroscience, motor control, modeling neural control of respiration and locomotion

  • Francis Sessler, PhD

    Professor Emeritus
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Natalia Shevtsova, PhD

    Research Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Computational neuroscience, motor control, modeling neural control of respiration and locomotion

  • Jed Shumsky, PhD

    Professor, Neurobiology and Anatomy; Chair, Academic Affairs Committee; Senior Associate Dean of Educational and Academic Affairs, Graduate School
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: While no longer engaged in active research, he is serves as a consultant for students and faculty who would like help with behavioral testing, animal modeling of human conditions, and statistical analysis.

  • Janet Smith, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Veronica Tom, PhD

    Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Axon regeneration and plasticity after spinal cord injury

  • Kazuhito Toyooka, PhD

    Associate Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Translational research of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease (PD) - Peptide therapy, CRISPR gene therapy, mouse models, patient-derived hiPSCs, gene functions in axon/dendrite outgrowth, spine/synapse formation, neural circuit/activity, and neurobehaviors including sociability, repetitive behavior, learning and memory

  • Kathryn Veazey, PhD, MS

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy

  • Dong Wang, PhD

    Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Neural ensemble dynamics underlying learning and memory consolidation; emotion; learning and memory; neurobiology; prefrontal neuronal circuitry; sleep neurobiology; systems neurobiology

  • Wenqian Yu, MD

    Research Assistant Professor
    Department: Neurobiology & Anatomy
     Research Interests: Microtubules, Neuronal development

 
Secondary Faculty
 

Vikas Bhandawat, PhD

Research Interests: Sensorimotor integration, whole-cell patch clamp and imaging in behaving animals, optogenetics, neuromechanics, locomotion

Alexander Dizhoor, PhD

Research Interests: Photoreceptors and using gene therapy to correct visual impairment

Pooja Jain, PhD

Research Interests: Retrovirus (HIV/HTLV)-associated cancer and neuroinflammation, myeloid/dendritic cell-based immunotherapy, extracellular vesicles

Catherine von Reyn, PhD

Research Interests: Sensorimotor transformations, sensory processing, action selection, neural circuit engineering, neural circuit development

 
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