Program Personnel

Professor of Neuroscience

Dr. Baraban’s research is focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms mediating learning and memory and how intraneuronal signaling pathways orchestrate this process. His laboratory has investigated several key signaling pathways central to this process, including the phosphoinositide system, the MAP kinase pathway and immediate early genes. More recently, his laboratory has focused on understanding how the microRNA system regulates synaptic function and identified the translin/trax RNAse complex, as a key component of the microRNA system in neurons. He has a 30-year history of actively mentoring trainees at both the graduate student and post-doctoral level. Furthermore, during the summers, he has mentored high school and undergraduate students in his lab. This group of trainees includes many students from racial and ethnic minorities and/or disadvantaged backgrounds.

Professor of Neuroscience

Dr. Dwight Bergles is a professor of neuroscience and otolaryngology–head and neck surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He holds the Diana Sylvestre and Charles Homcy Professorship. His research focuses on synaptic physiology. Dr. Bergles serves as the director of the Multiphoton Imaging and Electrophysiology Core at the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience.

His team is currently focused on glutamate transporters and glial involvement in neuronal signaling.

Dr. Bergles received his undergraduate degree in biology from Boston University. He earned his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular physiology from Stanford University. He completed postdoctoral training at the Vollum Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. Dr. Bergles joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2000.

He is a member of the Society for Neuroscience and the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. His work has been recognized with several honors, including the NARSAD Young Investigator Award from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation in 2005.

Program Director
Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience

Dr. Amanda Brown joined Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) in 2004 and moved up the faculty ranks, achieving to date the level of Associate Professor in December 2016. She has made major contributions to the identification and understanding of cellular pathways involved in primary human macrophages that are required for HIV-1 replication and which promote a proinflammatory environment in the brain. The goal of research in her laboratory is to identify and understand the molecular mechanisms leading to HIV-mediated inflammation in the brain and its impact on neuronal function, learning, and memory. The product encoded by the SPP1 gene is a unique multifunctional protein that is elevated in the central nervous system in HIV-related neuronal damage and other well-known neurodegenerative disorders. Her lab is using several experimental paradigms to test hypotheses, including humanized mice, which can be productively infected with HIV and subjected to neuroimaging and behavioral testing, as well as in vitro human myeloid, and neuronal culture models to dissect and understand molecular mechanisms. With these approaches, the ultimate aim is to apply the knowledge gained to develop new and better treatments to ameliorate HIV-associated cognitive comorbidities. Her research has been funded with support from the National Institutes of Mental Health, the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the Landenberger Research Foundation.

Dr. Brown was selected as a Keystone Symposia on Molecular and Cell Biology Fellow for 2014, the AAMC Mid-Career Minority Faculty Leadership Seminar and for her work in helping to diversify the training pipeline, in 2014 she received the Johns Hopkins Diversity Leadership Award. Most recently she was nominated for the Provost Prize for Faculty Excellence in Diversity, nominated for the Inaugural NINDS Story Landis Mentoring Award and in 2018, received the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Living the Hopkins Mission Honor.

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience

The long-term goal of her laboratory is to understand the functional organization of the mammalian neocortex in the healthy brain and the alterations in electrophysiological, synaptic and circuit properties that underlie neurologic and psychiatric disease. She is focused on how circuit organization and function sculpt neuronal computations using a wide range of techniques including calcium imaging, extracellular recordings, whole-cell patch clamp recordings, stereotaxic surgery, quantitative analysis of neuronal structure, viral approaches for driving selective expression in subsets of neurons and optogenetics. Since establishing her own laboratory at Johns Hopkins in 2010, she has placed great emphasis on mentoring the trainees in her laboratory. Trainees at all levels – postdoctoral, doctoral and undergraduate – have been awarded fellowships or research funds based on proposals written while in her laboratory.

Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences

Dr. Greg Carr’s laboratory uses rodent models to determine how these risk factors modulate neurobiology and behavior. We utilize neurochemical, electrophysiological, and behavioral assays to interrogate the neural systems thought to be impaired in neurodevelopmental disorders. His research’s ultimate goal is to use this knowledge to inform drug discovery efforts designed to increase and improve the treatment options available for central nervous system disorders.

Associate Professor of Pediatrics

Dr. Raul Chavez-Valdez is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His area of clinical expertise is Neonatology, and he completed Medical School in Lima Peru, Pediatric residency at University of Illinois at Chicago, and post-doctoral Fellowship in Neonatology-Perinatology and Community Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University-School of Medicine where he was awarded the 2007 Eudowood Board Bauernschmidt Fellowship Award. Since 2005 his research has been focused in mechanisms of neurotrophism with particular interest in the neurological disorders evolving during the perinatal period. His research interests focus on the mechanisms of delayed injury and repair/regeneration in the developing brain following injury, specifically following neonatal hypoxic ischemic injury. He collaborates with Frances Northington (neonatology), Lee Martin (pathology/neuroscience) and Alfredo Kirkwood (neuroscience/The Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute) in unveiling the importance of alterations of mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in the setting of brain injury induced by birth asphyxia. He is especially interested in the role of neurotrophins in the survival and developmental maturation of specific neurons within the hippocampus, an area of the brain essential for memory. All of these aspects of developmental neuroplasticity are the basis of his Career Development K08 Award from the NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Additionally, he is part of multiple clinical efforts as a member of the Neurosciences Intensive Care Nursery team.

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Vikram S. Chib is an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He holds a joint appointment at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. A research scientist at the Johns Hopkins-affiliated Kennedy Krieger Institute, Dr. Chib works to understand how the human brain processes internal and external rewards, and how these signals motivate behavior.

Dr. Chib received his B.S. in bioengineering from University of Pittsburgh. He earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Northwestern University. Dr. Chib completed postdoctoral scholarship in biology and biological engineering at the California Institute of Technology as well as a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science postdoctoral fellowship at Advanced Telecommunications Research in Kyoto, Japan.

Research in the Chib Lab focuses on understanding how the brain integrates information about rewards to motivate performance. Investigators believe this knowledge will help explain how neural and behavioral processing breaks down during neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders—and help shed light on how such conditions can be treated. They hope that by understanding motivated performance, they can determine how to best incentivize individuals in real-world settings. The team utilizes engineering, cognitive neuroscience and experimental economics methods to address this issue.

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Alyssa Coyne’s research program focuses on understanding how the mechanisms underlying nuclear pore complex and nuclear envelope homeostasis go awry to give rise to and/or propagate neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis with a particular emphasis on role of the ESCRT-III pathway and CHMP7. As a PhD student, she studied and trained at the University of Arizona with Dr. Daniela Zarnescu. My studies lead to the identification futsch/MAP1B and hsc70-4/HSPA8 mRNAs as post-transcriptional targets of TDP-43 the dysregulation of which impacts neuromuscular junction morphology and stability and synaptic function respectively. As a postdoctoral research fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the lab of Dr. Jeffrey D Rothstein, she used iPSCs, postmortem human tissue, and mouse models to study the molecular mechanisms underlying ALS with a focus on structural and functional alterations in the nuclear pore complex in C9orf72 ALS/FTD, sporadic ALS, and tau mediated FTD/Alzheimer’s Disease.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Neuroscience

Dr. Kathleen Cullen is the Raj and Neera Singh Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and professor of Neuroscience, and Otolaryngology. She is also the co-director of the Center for Hearing and Balance. Dr. Cullen founded and directs Johns Hopkins’ Systems Neuroscience and Neuroengineering Laboratory (SNNL) which spans the interdisciplinary fields of neural engineering and neuroscience harnessing the power of innovative computational and neurophysiological methodologies. The experimental approach is multidisciplinary and includes high-density neuronal recordings during natural behaviors, the application of deep convolutional networks for movement analysis, and neural computational approaches. The central mission of the research in the SNNL is to advance our fundamental understanding of how the brain encodes and integrates self-motion information, and use this knowledge to drive innovative translational and clinical developments (such as neural prosthetics) to improve patient outcomes. The scientific environment within the SNNL embeds both basic and clinical research on core topics: vertigo and dizziness, gait and posture, and spatial orientation disorders

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Raha Dastgheyb is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins Brain Health Group. She has a background in engineering and computer science, and currently applies tools from those fields to addressing questions related to brain health – ranging from the bench to the clinic.

Modern technology gives us more data than most people know what to do with. Bench scientists should not be limited in terms of what they can analyze due to a lack of coding ability. Coming from that world, she enjoys creating encapsulated GUIs to help analyze all sorts of data.

Even in the computational world, she believes that all the tenants of good science still hold. Our “experiments” must be reproducible. And generating hypothesis from observations – that gives us so much opportunity for using Data Visualization to look at all of our data from so many different angles to generate those hypotheses.

She also uses Machine Learning models as hypothesis-generating models. Usually focusing on Variable Importance metrics from validated models, she works on visualizations to help interpret and explore them contextually.

Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, Physiology, Cellular & Molecular Medicine

Valina L. Dawson, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology, Neuroscience, Physiology and the Graduate Program in Cellular & Molecular Medicine. She is co-director of the Neuroregeneration and Stem Cell Programs in the Institute for Cell Engineering. Dr. Dawson’s laboratory is actively engaged in discovering and defining cell signaling pathways that lead to either neuronal survival or neuronal death. Dr. Dawson’s laboratory is studying mechanisms of brain cell death in stroke, has defined the excitotoxic signaling pathway mediated by nitric oxide, poly(ADP-Ribose) polymerase and apoptosis inducing factor and named it Parthanatos, to distinguish it from other distinct forms of cell death including apoptosis, autophagy and necrosis. She has identified and characterized new survival molecules which include a transcription factor NFIA, a novel E3 ligase Iduna, a novel Notch regulatory protein Botch and a novel AAA+ ATPase Thorase that acts to disassemble the GRIP1/GluR2 complex, thus regulating excitability, plasticity and behavior, as well as a microRNA, mIR-223 that regulates neuronal survival in part through regulation of glutamate receptor expression. Recently we have found overlap between our investigations in Parthanatos and Parkinson’s disease in that age dependent loss of dopamine neurons due to expression of the parkin substrate AIMP2 is dependent on Parthanatos. She is currently exploring if Parthanatos generally contributes to DA neurodegeneration and PD and has exciting new preliminary data that Parthantos is a common feature in many PD models as well as in human PD postmortem tissue.

Professor of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery

Paul Fuchs, Ph.D., is the David M. Rubenstein Research Professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, with secondary appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Neuroscience. He is co-director of the Center for Sensory Biology in the Institute for Basic Biomedical Sciences at Hopkins.

He received a Ph.D. in Neuro- and Bio-behavioral Sciences from Stanford University in 1979 for studies of presynaptic inhibition at the crayfish neuromuscular junction.  After postdoctoral training with John Nicholls at Stanford, Fuchs joined Robert Fettiplace at Cambridge University to begin his focus on synaptic physiology of the inner ear.  In 1984 he was appointed Assistant Professor of Physiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and in 1995 was recruited to the Johns Hopkins Center for Hearing and Balance.

His research centers on the cellular electrophysiology of the inner ear with particular attention paid to excitability and synaptic transmission between sensory hair cells, afferent and efferent neurons. These efforts have: 1.) discovered the molecular mechanisms by which acetylcholine release from efferent neurons inhibits hair cells, 2.) detailed the diversity of synaptic ribbon function among cochlear hair cells, 3.) catalogued the roles of gated ion channels in hair cells and 4.) provided the first evidence for the function of type II cochlear afferents.  At Johns Hopkins Dr. Fuchs oversees research programs in Otolaryngology, and is director of the T32 training grant to the Center for Hearing and Balance. His laboratory has trained more than 30 doctoral and postdoctoral students. He teaches regularly in the graduate, medical and undergraduate curriculum, serving as co-director of “Structure and Function of the Auditory and Vestibular Periphery” with Elisabeth Glowatzki, and directing “Cellular and Molecular Biology of Sensation” with Stewart Hendry, as well as lecturing in the Neuroscience and Medical school curricula. He lectures regularly in the U.S. and abroad, and directs the semi-annual Biology of the Inner Ear course at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA

Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is the fourth most common psychiatric disorder, affecting two to three percent of children and adolescents. It consists of intrusive ideas that are distressing and persistent (obsessions), or fixed behaviors that are compulsory in nature (compulsions). Examples are excessive handwashing, checking, perfectionism, touching, counting or hoarding. Dr. Grados has conducted a family study of OCD with child probands with the goal of locating susceptibility genes for OCD. As part of the the OCD Genetics Consortium (OCGS) based at Hopkins and the Tourette Syndrome Association International Genetics Consortium (TSA-IGC), Dr. Grados continues to investigate the genetic basis of OCD and Tourette syndrome (motor and vocal tics).

With support from the Obsessive-Compulsive Foundation (OCF), Dr. Grados also studies the subtype of “autoimmune OCD” collecting serum to test for cytokine network abnormalities (markers of inflammation) in children with OCD and Tourette syndrome. Dr. Grados also conducts research in a genetic syndrome, Cornelia de Lange syndrome (CdLS), with support from the CdLS-USA Foundation. CdLS provides a research model to better understand autism and obsessive-compulsive traits (repetitive behaviors) starting from a known gene mechanism.

Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Adrian Haith is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins University. His research seeks to develop and test theories about how the brain makes decisions and controls movement of the body, and how it learns to improve these capabilities through experience.

He received his undergraduate degree from Cambridge University (Sidney Sussex College) in Mathematics and Computer Science. He received an MSc in Machine Learning/Informatics from the University of Edinburgh and subsequent PhD under Dr. Sethu Vijayakumar. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Reza Shademhr and then in the BLAM Lab under Dr. John Krakauer. He is now Faculty in the Department of Neurology and Co-Director of the BLAM Lab since 2014.

Professor of Neuroscience

Research in the James Knierim Laboratory attempts to understand the flow of information through the hippocampal formation and the computations performed by the various subfields of the hippocampus and its inputs from the entorhinal cortex. To address these issues, he uses multi-electrode arrays to record the extracellular action potentials from scores of well-isolated hippocampal neurons in freely moving rats in addition to behavioral and computational approaches. More recently, his lab has begun to investigate the selective role of changes in the LEC and its downstream hippocampal targets in the development of age-related cognitive dysfunction. He is the Co-Director of the Neuroscience Training Program at Johns Hopkins University, serves on the neuroscience program admissions committee, and was Chair of the Neuroscience Program Steering Committee, Course Director for the Current Topics in Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience and the Neuroscience and Cognition II courses, and has been Co-Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program since August 2014. At the Marine Biological Laboratory, he was Co-Director of the Neural Systems & Behavior summer course from 2007-2012, providing a unique and often career-defining educational experience for 100 students.

Professor of Neurology

Dr. John Krakauer is a Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience, and Director of the Center for the Study of Motor Learning and Brain Repair at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Krakauer’s clinical interest is stroke, including ischemic cerebrovascular disease, subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage, arteriovenous malformation, cerebral vasculitis, cerebral aneurysm, and venous and sinus thrombosis.

Dr. Krakauer’s Brain, Learning, Animation and Movement (B.L.A.M.) Lab focuses on the general area of experimental and computational motor control with a particular focus on how motor learning occurs in the brain, and how such learning is affected by lesions. Specific areas of interest include: 1. Tracking long-term motor skill learning and its relation to higher cognitive processes such as decision making; 2. Prediction of motor recovery after stroke; 3. Mechanisms of spontaneous motor recovery after stroke in humans and in mouse models; and 4. New neuro-rehabilitation approaches for patients in the first 3 months after stroke.

Professor of Neuroscience

Dr. Alex Kolodkin joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1995, and he is currently the Homcy and Margolis Professor of Neuroscience. He and his colleagues have focused on understanding how the nervous system is wired up during development. As a postdoctoral fellow, he discovered the first member of the semaphorin family of neuronal guidance cues, and his group continues to investigate molecular mechanisms that direct connectivity in many neural systems, including in the context of adult neuronal regeneration. Recent work includes a focus on mammalian visual system development, function, and work to direct injured retinal ganglion cell axons to their targets in the brain.

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Kornberg completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University. He then received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and stayed at Johns Hopkins for neurology residency and a clinical and research fellowship in neuroimmunology. He is committed to a career that combines the competent and compassionate care of patients with multiple sclerosis and other immunolgic disorders of the nervous system with basic and translational research aimed at developing improved therapies.

His laboratory at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine conducts basic and translational research aimed at better understanding the pathogenesis of multiple sclerosis (MS) and the role of the immune system in CNS health and disease. They are particularly interested in understanding the processes that drive progressive disability such as neurodegeneration and remyelination failure, with a goal of developing new therapies for MS and other autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases.

Lecturer of Biomedical Engineering

Kwame Sanwu Kutten is a lecturer in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is an instructor in the Gateway Computing course and provides daily support for students in quantitative classes within the department. His research combines biomedical imaging and computational methods to study how brain structure and connections change in disorder and disease.

Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology-HNS

The overall goal of the Lauer Lab is to understand how abnormal auditory input from the ear affects the brainstem, and how the brain in turn affects activity in the ear through efferent feedback loops. The emphasis is on understanding the effects of different forms of acquired hearing loss (genetic, conductive, noise-induced, age-related, traumatic brain injury-related) and environmental noise. The lab is particularly interested in plastic changes in the brain that compensate for some aspects of altered auditory input, and how those changes relate to central auditory processing deficits, tinnitus, and hyperacusis. Understanding these changes will help refine therapeutic strategies and identify new targets for treatment. The lab collaborates with other labs in the Departments of Otolaryngology, Neuroscience, Neuropathology, the Wilmer Eye Institute, and the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins, in addition to labs outside the university to increase the impact and clinical relevance of the research. Dr. Lauer’s work has received support from the NIH, American Hearing Research Foundation, National Organization for Hearing Research, Capita Foundation, Action on Hearing Loss, Tinnitus Research Consortium, Johns Hopkins University Catalyst Award, and the David M. Rubenstein Fund for Hearing Research. Dr. Lauer serves as a key faculty member in the Structure and Function of the Auditory and Vestibular System course at Johns Hopkins and teaches in other Neuroscience-related courses. She also serves as part of the organizing faculty for the Jackson Laboratory Mouse as an Instrument for Ear Research and as a faculty member for the Marine Biological Laboratory Biology of the Inner Ear course.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Xingde Li is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a member of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. He also has an appointment in the Department of Oncology and the Johns Hopkins University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

His research focuses on biomedical photonics, and he has specific expertise in fluorescence imaging and spectroscopy, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and multiphoton endomicroscopy for cancer detection, surgical guidance, and preterm-birth risk assessment etc. His research group pioneered the development of the first ultra-compact, fully integrated, single-fiber scanning endomicroscope for performing label-free functional imaging of tissue histology in vivo, in situ, and in real time. The ultimate goal of the research in his team is to transform our capability of disease detection at early, manageable stages, reduction of the (random) sampling errors in clinical diagnosis, monitoring of therapeutic effects and treatment outcomes, and guidance of interventions. The technologies developed in his team also offer new opportunities for basic research in exploring new frontiers of disease mechanisms, brain function, bio-marker discovery, and integrated diagnosis and therapy.

Professor of Neuroscience

His research examines the cellular substrates of memory storage and recovery of function following brain injury among other topics. His lab has been a leader in cellular electrophysiology and live-tissue imaging for many years and has an established track record for persevering to accomplish some of the most challenging experiments in this field. In this regard, his laboratory invented the techniques of neuronal BAC transfection and perforated dendritic macropatch recording and discovered several new synaptic and intrinsic plasticity mechanisms. Dr. Linden has authored four neuroscience books for general audiences.  He is an elected fellow of the AAAS and the American Physiological Society.

Professor of Neurology

Dr. Thomas Lloyd specializes in neuromuscular disorders in adults, with a particular interest in neurogenetics and motor neuron diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), motor neuropathies, and muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophy.

Dr. Lloyd’s research interests include understanding the mechanisms of motor neuron degeneration using simple genetic model systems. Current investigations focus on the role of genes that regulate transport of organelles and survival signals along motor nerve axons. Dr. Lloyd is developing genetic and pharmacologic screens to identify novel drug targets for motor neuron diseases.

The Lloyd laboratory studies fruit fly, mouse, and human cell culture models of neuromuscular degenerative diseases, including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, and Inclusion Body Myositis.

Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Brett Morrison specializes in neuromuscular disorders in adults including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neuropathies, myasthenia gravis and muscle diseases including myopathy and muscular dystrophy. His research interests include investigations into the basic mechanisms of acute denervation and the development of treatments for chronic denervating diseases such amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or motor neuropathies. In respect to peripheral nerves, he is particularly interested in the role of metabolic energy in supporting nerve regeneration. His laboratory focuses on the role of oligodendrocytes in ALS, particularly focusing on mechanisms leading to oligodendrocyte dysfunction or failure of metabolic support from oligodendrocytes to neurons. In his brief career as a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, he has mentored a number of students at various educational levels.

Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Brett Morrison specializes in neuromuscular disorders in adults including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, motor neuropathies, myasthenia gravis and muscle diseases including myopathy and muscular dystrophy. His research interests include investigations into the basic mechanisms of acute denervation and the development of treatments for chronic denervating diseases such amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or motor neuropathies. In respect to peripheral nerves, he is particularly interested in the role of metabolic energy in supporting nerve regeneration. His laboratory focuses on the role of oligodendrocytes in ALS, particularly focusing on mechanisms leading to oligodendrocyte dysfunction or failure of metabolic support from oligodendrocytes to neurons. In his brief career as a faculty member at Johns Hopkins, he has mentored a number of students at various educational levels.

Professor of Neuroscience

Dr. Ernst Niebur is a professor of neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a professor of pscychological and brain sciences at the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. His research examines neuronal function at the system level focusing particularly on a function known as selective attention, which is the capability of humans and higher animals to scan sensory input for the most important information and to discard other non-essential information.

The Niebur lab constructs quantitative models of biological nervous systems that are firmly based on their neurophysiology, neuroanatomy and behavior. The lab’s main interest is neuronal function at the system level, reflecting the interaction of subsystems to generate useful behavior. Modeling is particularly important for understanding this and other systems-level functions, since it requires the interaction of several pathways and neural functions.

One of the functions studied is selective attention, which is the capability of higher animals to scan sensory input for the most important information and to discard all other. The lab constructs models of the neuronal basis of visual selective attention by simulating them on digital computers and comparing the results with data obtained from the visual and somatosensory systems of primates. Particular attention is paid to the mechanisms involving the implementation of neural mechanisms that make use of the temporal structure of neuronal firing, rather than just the average firing rate.

Program Director
Associate Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Tilak Ratnanather’s research focus is on the analysis of brain structures which include hippocampus, cingulate gyrus, planum temporale, superior temporal gyrus, and the auditory and prefrontal cortexes. These structures are implicated in neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, major depression, speech and language processing.

Other interests include the physiological fluid mechanics of the cochlear outer hair cell, the study of nonlinear partial differential equations (e.g. EPDiff in Computational Anatomy, Webster’s Equation in bioacoustics, boundary layer separation in physiological flows), and continuing education via online web courses in applied mathematics.

Professor of Neurology

Dr. Jeffrey Rothstein focuses on neuromuscular diseases, with a particular focus on Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Other clinical areas relevant to his laboratory-based research include: idiopathic stupor, epilepsy and motor neuron degeneration.

His laboratory includes more than 20-post doctoral fellows, neurology residents, neuromuscular and epilepsy fellows, undergraduate students, technicians and ALS clinic staff. He has been the principal and/or local investigator in eight national or international trials in ALS. He is the author of more than 100 articles on basic and clinical neuroscience. Dr. Rothstein’s laboratory research is funded through the National Institutes of Health, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the ALS Association and Project A.L.S.

Associate Professor of Radiology

Dr. Haris Sair is an Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins Medicine Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, and the Director of the Division of Neuroradiology. His areas of clinical expertise include functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) of the brain. He also has a faculty appointment in the Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare at The Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, investigating the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in imaging.

His laboratory focuses on clinical applications of advanced functional brain imaging. Ongoing projects include detection of brain networks using resting state fMRI for presurgical brain mapping, investigating alterations in brain functional connectivity in a variety of neurological disorders such as dementia, traumatic brain injury, and coma, as well as utilizing functional connectivity for predicting outcome.

Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences

Dr. Ronald Schnaar is the John Jacob Abel Professor of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences and Professor of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His team studies glycans and glycan-binding proteins as therapeutic targets in inflammatory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and ganglioside functions in the brain.

Dr. Schnaar’s research focuses on: 1. Cell-cell interactions in inflammation – Engaging the lectin Siglec-8 on the surface of human eosinophils, basophils, and mast cells results in apoptosis and inhibition of immune mediator release, inhibiting allergic inflammation. His team has identified glycan structures that bind to Siglec-8 and that represent lead compounds for glycan-based asthma therapy, including endogenous counter-receptors in human airways that control eosinophilic inflammation; 2. Sialoglycans in the control of nervous system proteinopathies. Immune inhibitory response — Siglecs are expressed on brain microglia, where they regulate the clearance of misfolded proteins. Key to this interaction are endogenous brain sialoglycans that engage microglial Siglecs. Knowledge of these structures and their expression in human proteinopathies such as Alzheimer’s Disease promises new avenues to alter disease progression; 3. Gangliosides — a class of sialoglycans that represent major molecular determinants on the surfaces of all mammalian cells, but particularly nerve cells. Gangliosides bind specifically to their own cell surface proteins and proteins on other cells to regulate nervous system functions. Chemical biology probes are being used to identify the mammalian ganglioside interactome.

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Shao received his medical and master’s degrees from Soochow University Medical School (China), and postdoctoral training in neuroscience at Colorado State University and the University of Utah. Dr. Shao was a Research Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences at Bethesda, MD before he joined Johns Hopkins in 2014.

Dr. Shao pursues a research career focusing on understanding cellular mechanisms of acquired epilepsy as well as novel treatments for epilepsy. Using animal models of acquired epilepsy and electrophysiological and pharmacological techniques, he studies the roles of excitatory neuronal circuits, inhibitory synaptic transmission, as well as neuronal network in the process of epileptogenesis. He is committed to continue exploring novel mechanisms of acquired epilepsy and new approaches for epilepsy treatment and prevention.

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Anja Soldan’s research focuses on cognitive and brain aging, the neural basis of cognitive reserve and preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Soldan is interested in understanding why some individuals show more cognitive impairment than others given the same amount of brain pathology and in identifying lifestyle factors that promote cognitive and brain health with advancing age.  She is also studying the earliest cognitive and brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease to improve early detection. In addition, she is interested in understanding cognitive changes that occur with normal aging.

Dr. Soldan received her undergraduate degree with highest honors in psychology from Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She earned an M.A., M. Phil and PhD in psychology at Columbia University in New York, New York. Dr. Soldan joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 2011. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, New York.

Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics

Dr. Stafstrom earned a BA in Biophysics and English from the University of Pennsylvania and an MD and PhD (in Physiology and Biophysics) from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. He trained in pediatrics at the University of Washington and in child neurology and pediatric epilepsy at Tufts Medical School and Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston. For almost twenty years, he served as professor of Neurology and Pediatrics as well as chief of the Division of Pediatric Neurology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before moving to Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Stafstrom maintains an active clinical practice in pediatric neurology and epilepsy. He also pursues laboratory investigations into the mechanisms of epileptogenesis in the developing brain, the consequences of seizures during development and their alleviation with dietary and metabolic therapies, and children’s self-perceptions of neurological disorders through art. He is author of more than 250 original articles, reviews, chapters, and commentaries on pediatric epilepsy and related topics in child neurology, as well as editor of two books. He recently completed a 12-year term on the editorial board of the journal Epilepsy Currents, including 5 years as chief editor.

A dedicated educator who places high priority on the teaching and mentoring of medical students and residents, Dr. Stafstrom is the recipient of numerous institutional and national teaching awards, including the American Neurological Association’s 2012 Distinguished Neurology Teacher Award.

Assistant Professor of Opthalmology

Jung Soo Suk is an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research interests lie in therapeutic nanomedicine for the treatment of numerous diseases occurring in brain, lung, bladder and eyes. Nanomedicine, due to its nano-scale dimension, provides unique opportunities to overcome challenging physiological barriers that hamper efficient delivery of therapeutics to the target tissues. His research group focuses on developing nanotechnology-based drug and nucleic acid delivery platforms and strategies based on in-depth understanding of biochemical and biophysical properties of those delivery barriers.

Dr. Suk received his B.S. in chemical engineering at Korea University and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He joined the Center for Nanomedicine as a research associate prior to his tenure-track faculty appointment in 2015.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science

Jeremias’ research focuses on sparse recovery, dictionary learning and machine learning, with an interest in inverse problems in signal and image processing. In particular, he is interested in the theoretical study of deep learning, as well as its application to detection, classification and other problems in biomedical sciences.

Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Dr. Nitish Thakor is a professor of biomedical engineering and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also has an appointment in the Johns Hopkins Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He conducts research on neurological instrumentation, biomedical signal processing, micro and nanotechnologies, neural prosthesis, clinical applications of neural and rehabilitation technologies, and brain-machine interface.

Dr. Thakor directs the Laboratory for Neuroengineering and is also the director of the NIH Training Grant on Neuroengineering. One of Dr. Thakor’s research projects, in collaboration with a multi-university consortium funded by DARPA, focuses on developing a next generation neurally controlled upper limb prosthesis. He is actively engaged in developing international scientific programs, collaborative exchanges, tutorials and conferences in the field of biomedical engineering.

He received his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, in Bombay, India. He earned both a M.S. in and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Thakor joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1983.

Nitish Thakor’s Biomedical Instrumentation and Neuroengineering Lab has developed prosthetic fingertips that “feel” temperature with skin-like cosmesis embedded with sensors. His research team of more than 20 students and faculty are using robotics to help develop the next generation of prosthetics.

Professor of Pathology and Neuroscience

Dr. Philip Wong is a professor of pathology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) – frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Dr. Wong’s team takes a molecular/cellular approach, including transgenic, gene targeting, and RNAi strategies in mice, to develop models that facilitate their understanding of pathogenesis of AD and ALS-FTD as well as the identification and validation of novel targets for mechanism-based therapeutics.

He received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry and his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Western Ontario in Canada. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in cellular and molecular biology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Biological Chemistry. Dr. Wong joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1994.

Dr. Wong is a member of the Society of Neuroscience and a member of the editorial board for Molecular Neurodegeneration. Dr. Wong’s work has been recognized with the 2004 Zenith Fellow’s Award from the Alzheimer’s Association and the 2007 MetLife Foundation Award for Medical Research in AD.

Associate Professor of Neurology

Dr. Mark Wu specializes in sleep disorders and has a particular interest in narcolepsy, idiopathic hypersomnolence, circadian rhythm disorders, and familial sleepwalking. Dr. Wu’s lab uses a multi-pronged approach in their studies:  genetic screens, molecular and immunohistochemical analyses, and electrophysiological and imaging-based techniques.  Although it is clear that the circadian clock regulates sleep, how it does so is unknown.  Recently, his group identified a conserved molecule, named WIDE AWAKE, that plays a critical role in mediating circadian clock-dependent regulation of sleep.  WIDE AWAKE translates timing information from the molecular clock to modulate excitability of clock neurons, in order to regulate the timing of sleep.  Strikingly, this novel molecule is conserved in mammals, and is specifically enriched in the suprachiasmatic nucleus in mice (their circadian pacemaker), strongly suggesting that the function of WIDE AWAKE will be conserved in mammals.

Using these technologies, his lab is also studying the role of sleep in regulating synaptic plasticity–one of its hypothesized functions. His group also investigates the dopamine networks modulating behavior.  Dopamine is a critical neuromodulator that regulates a wide variety of behaviors, and we have been generating novel genetic tools in order to easily isolate few to individual dopamine neurons.  Using these tools, this research probes the function and activity of highly restricted dopamine circuits in regulating different behaviors, including arousal and feeding.  The goal of these studies is to unravel the complex network of interactions between internal states and external stimuli mediated by dopamine.

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Dr. Eran Shorer is a medical doctor and computational neuroscientist working in the Johns Hopkins Brain Health Program, Department of Neurology/Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University. His work focuses on better understanding of health systems where the poor outcomes arising from many neurological and psychiatric disorders are treated by adopting novel approaches from data-science, biophysics, and electrical/biomedical engineering.

Dr. Clara Giles Carter is known across the country for her knowledge, skills, expertise and commitment to youth mentoring. As a former Director of the Maryland Mentoring Resource Center, she contributed to the successful efforts in making mentoring an integral part of Maryland’s social fabric.

Ms. Hanson provides training for business executives, corporations, politicians, groups, schools and colleges and has appeared on radio and television talk shows. Prior to founding The International School of Protocol, Cathleen Hanson was a university professor of communication and nationally recognized speech and debate coach. In addition to coaching national champions in speech and debate, she taught courses in the area of public speaking, business communication, group communication, and nonverbal communication. She is an award winning speaker and writer whose syndicated columns appeared in over 30 publications nationwide. As a fully engaging top-notch teacher, her emphasis is on teaching adults, teens and children what she considers to be skills for life. Ms. Hanson holds a Masters in Communication Theory and Research and is also a founding partner of Road to Success: Career Development Program.

Dr. Asante Kamkwalala is a Research Associate in the Department of Neurology, Division of Neuroimmunology and Neurological Infections. A Maryland native, she trained as a cognitive and behavioral neuroscientist and received her Bachelors of Science (B.S.) in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University in 2009, and her Doctorate (Ph.D.) from Vanderbilt University in Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience in 2019.

Dr. Kamkwalala returned to Maryland as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Johns Hopkins Department from 2019-2022. Her research experience in the past has focused on the effects of chronic stress and disease on neurocognitive functioning and mental health symptoms. Her previous work has investigated neurophysiological biomarkers of stress, the effects of age and HIV on cognitive function, and determining biological, medical, and epidemiological factors that contribute to improved neurobehavioral outcomes in people with HIV.

Heather served as the Education Programs Manager from 2017-2023  providing guidance, administrative support, and mentorship training (CIMER) to the students and faculty who are part of these research training programs. Heather aims to help students and new investigators grow as scientists by developing their skills in the health sciences through education and hands-on training. She does this by organizing science conferences, retreats, courses in grantsmanship, mentorship, professional development, and lab experiences for program trainees. ​

Prior to joining Johns Hopkins, Heather proudly served in the United States Army as a Combat Medic. After being honorably discharged, Heather pursued her bachelor’s and master’s degrees while working full time in various education and research-related positions to include: Neurosurgery Residency Program Coordinator, Neurology Fellowship Coordinator, Clinical Research Assistant for multiple brain and spinal cord injury studies, and Investigational Drug Technician. By 2010, Heather graduated with a Masters of Business Administration (M.B.A.) degree from University of Maryland Global Campus, a Masters Certificate in Clinical Investigation, and a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree in Health Systems Management from the University of Baltimore. She is an active volunteer in programs within the University such as the annual C.A.R.E.S Symposium and the Johns Hopkins Commencement Ceremony, as well as other social and spiritual community programs such as Moveable Feast, United Way and Bible Study Fellowship (BSF).

George served as the formal JHNSP Program Manager and in addition to being integral to the development of the JHNSP program and it’s website, he has previously collaborated with Dr. Amanda Brown with the Johns Hopkins Internship in Brain Science Program: Project Pipeline Baltimore. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Biology and minor in Entrepreneurship and Management. During his undergraduate years, he served as a Research Assistant in the Brown lab, studying the effects of osteopontin on HIV-induced neurons. In addition, he worked as a chemistry Teaching Assistant, a Resident Advisor, and a basketball coach for local middle school students. George is invested in giving back to his communities and is currently applying to medical school with the intention of becoming a physician-leader in the future.