Faculty
Mentor eligible Neuroscience Graduate Program (NGP) faculty are tenured or tenure-track members of the University of Rochester Faculty. Each has strong research interests in the neurosciences, and makes important contributions to the Graduate Program in Neuroscience.
Affiliated Faculty
Otolaryngology
Research Interest:
Self-motion perception and adaptability of vestibular perception
Research Interest:
Neuroimaging techniques and computational tools to study the changes in brain functions and microstructures in animal models of human disorders
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Neurocognitive and communication deficits in autism and other developmental disabilities
Research Interest: Pharmacology of brain and lymphocytic opioid receptors
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Focus on understanding how specific neuronal circuits in the early visual system encode visual information and how attention impacts the encoding of visual information.
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
Multiphoton Laser Scanning Microscopy, novel in vivo imaging and measurement techniques, tumor biology, angiogenesis
Cerebrovascular and Neurocognitive Research Group (CNRG)
NeurologyNeuroscience
Research Interest: Stroke rehabilitation
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
Auditory Neuroscience; neurophysiological, behavioral, and computational studies of hearing; signal processing for hearing aids.
Environmental Medicine
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Defining the impact of environmental chemicals (e.g., metals and air pollution) on brain development and behavior, with emphasis on attributable risk to neurodevelopmental disorders.
Otolaryngology
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
The interaction of vision, the vestibular system, and human disease on motion perception.
Biomedical Engineering
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Research Interest: Visual neuroscience; multi-sensory integration; neural coding; linking neurons to perception
Research Interest:
Understanding the interaction of HIV with glial cells; Developing an improved live attenuated influenza vaccine (LAIV); Elucidating the host cell response to infection by viral pathogens (with emphasis on SARS-CoV-2 and Adeno-associated virus, AAV)
Neuroscience
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms of neuropeptide signal transduction
Research Interest: Molecular Mechanisms of Calcium Signaling in Striated Muscle
Psychology
Research Interest:
How we process social information, make meaningful social connections, and how these processes vary across the full spectrum of health and psychiatric illness with a particular focus on schizophrenia-spectrum disorders using behavioral and neuroimaging (e.g., fMRI) methods.
Research Interest:
Flexible allocation of the brain’s limited processing resources in attention, perception, and working memory
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Understanding the molecular basis of behaviors relevant to stress and the actions of fast antidepressant and anxiolytic drugs, aiming to identify specific circuits, neuronal subpopulations and synaptic mechanisms involved in these responses.
Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory
NeurosciencePsychiatry
Research Interest:
Basic neurophysiology of schizophrenia and autism
Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory
NeuroscienceResearch Interest: Human neurophysiology in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, Dyslexia, Autism, Lysosomal Storage disorders, and sports concussions
Research Interest: Nucleic acid modification and repair mechanisms linked to neurodevelopmental disorders, mitochondrial diseases, and cancer.
Psychiatry
Research Interest: Anatomy and neurochemistry of brain regions associated with symptoms in major psychiatric illnesses
Research Interest:
Identifing molecular regulators of long-range trafficking of protein cargoes to distinct sub-domains of polarized cells, such as neurons
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Mechanisms supporting conceptual processing, language, and action function in patients with brain tumor or epilepsy.
Psychiatry
Neurology
Research Interest: Understanding the neural mechanisms that transform nociceptive input to painful perceptions in humans and how these mechanisms change in chronic pain
Pediatrics
Neurology
Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms and potential pharmacological and gene therapeutic interventions for neurologic disease associated with HIV-1 infection of the central nervous system.
Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms of prion propagation and pathogenesis
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Identify the expression patterns of the major categories of stem and progenitor cells of the adult human brain and to use that information to define the signaling pathways that distinguish one progenitor from another, as well as those that distinguish brain tumor stem and progenitor cells from their normal counterparts.
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Research Interest:
Understanding the neural mechanisms that mediate sensation and action with our hands.
Research Interest:
Mechanisms of aging and the role of DNA repair and genomic instability in the aging process.
Epilepsy Imaging Phenotypes (Gugger) Lab
NeurologyResearch Interest:
Quantitative brain imaging and its clinical applications in neuroscience, particularly in epilepsy and traumatic brain injury
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Pharmacology & Physiology
Psychiatry
Research Interest:
Basal ganglia and degenerative diseases
Research Interest:
Basic biological mechanisms of circadian synchrony and entrainment in health and disease. Understanding how circadian rhythms and sleep can enhance glymphatic, neuronal, and cerebrovascular function.
Research Interest:
Understanding how the brain forms percepts and how it uses them to make decisions, especially in the visual domain
Mitochondrial Research and Innovation Group
NeuroscienceNeurology
Research Interest: Uncovering neuro-immune mechanisms driving synapse and neuron turnover as well as microglia dysregulation throughout the lifespan
Otolaryngology
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
Cochlear neurodegeneration, neural mechanisms for hearing in noise
Neuroscience
Pediatrics
Research Interest:
Investigating if/how the production of rapid, coordinated movements requires control circuitry that can bypass sensory feedback delays by providing an estimate of the consequences resulting from a motor command.
Otolaryngology
Pharmacology & Physiology
Research Interest:
Synaptic pharmaco-physiology of vestibular efferent-afferent interactions
Neuroscience
Flaum Eye Institute
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Research Interest:
Neural mechanisms of visual recovery after stroke; optical correlates and molecular substrates of corneal wound healing and nerve regeneration; LIRIC
Cancer Control and Psychoneuroimmunology Lab
NeuroscienceSurgery
Radiation Oncology
Research Interest: Understanding clinical, psychological, and biological mechanisms of cognitive difficulties in cancer patients
Mitochondrial Research and Innovation Group
Pharmacology & PhysiologyAnesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
Research Interest:
Molecular mechanisms of Neurodegeneration
Rochester Environment and Child Health (REACH) Laboratory
Public Health SciencesPediatrics
Environmental Medicine
Research Interest: Environmental and Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology: Defining the impact of environmental chemicals on immunity and immune-mediated diseases and as a mechanism for susceptibility to other disease outcomes, such as neurobehavioral disorders.
Research Interest: G protein coupled receptor signaling and modulation of ion channels in neurons
Neuroscience
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Research Interest:
Visual perceptual alterations in psychosis, behavioral psychophysics, eye-tracking, functional neuroimaging, and conceptual foundations of cognitive science
Flaum Eye Institute
Biomedical Genetics
Research Interest: Molecular development of the eye and inner ear; anterior segment dysgenesis (ASD) and developmental glaucoma; congenital deafness and vestibular dysfunction
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
The electrophysiology of human sensation, perception and cognition, especially in naturalistic environments.
Flaum Eye Institute
Ophthalmology
Research Interest: Neurobiology of glaucoma, molecular processes that lead to retinal ganglion cell death.
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
Role of cochlear outer hair cells in hearing and hearing loss
Research Interest: Glia-neuron interactions during synaptic plasticity in health and disease
Biomedical Genetics
Research Interest: Identification of different stem and precursor cell pools in CNS that may be critical for cell replacement therapies or are targets of insults that lead to developmental pathologies.
Research Interest:
In vitro models of human lung and vascular barriers during inflammation
Advanced Retinal Imaging Alliance
Flaum Eye InstituteOphthalmology
Research Interest:
Optogenetic and photoreceptor replacement therapies to restore vision to the blind with particular emphasis on the challenges caused by the unusual anatomy and physiology of the fovea. Adaptive optics calcium imaging in the living eye to evaluate restored retinal function at the cellular scale in vivo.
Neuroscience
Pharmacology & Physiology
Research Interest:
Investigation of the molecules, receptors, and neural circuits that influence social interactions, including the actions of mammalian pheromones
Ophthalmology
Research Interest: Biological visual restoration; Organization of visual cortex in humans and non-human primates
Research Interest:
Visual processing, eye movements, and selective attention
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest:
Biophysics of inner ear sensory cells, cell mechanics
Biomedical Engineering
Neurology
Research Interest: The basic biology of glial cells in the CNS and the role of astrocytes in several neurological diseases, including stroke, spinal cord injury, epilepsy, tremor, and ALS. Research is aimed at defining new strategies for the treatment of neurological diseases that target astrocytic dysfunction.
Mitochondrial Research and Innovation Group
Pharmacology & PhysiologyMedicine
Research Interest: Integrative Physiology
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Vestibular anatomy and physiology, recovery from vestibular injury, vestibular control of head unrestrained gaze.
Research Interest: Neuro stem cell biology and medicine, developing pharmacological and cell based approaches to peripheral and spinal cord injury.
Computational Neuroscience of Audition
NeuroscienceBiostatistics & Computational Biology
Research Interest:
The neural computations that enable the perception of natural sounds, such as speech and music
Research Interest: Defining neuro-inflammatory processes that contribute to pathology and disease progression in Alzheimer's disease, as well as late CNS effects following radiation exposure
Wynne Center for Family Research
NeurosciencePsychiatry
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Research Interest: The mechanisms by which early stress exposures, including prenatal maternal anxiety and caregiving stress, may persistently shape children's behavioral and biological health
Research Interest: Mechanisms of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration within the CNS, primarily Glial Cells and Vascular components of the brain.
Neural Circuits and Computation Laboratory
NeuroscienceResearch Interest: Experimental and Computational Approaches to Sensory Perception
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Understand the natural statistics of the building blocks of communication
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Visual psychophysics, high-resolution eye tracking and gaze-contingent technology to study spatial updating, foveal vision and control of attention and eye movements at the fine scale
Biomedical Genetics
Biology
Research Interest: Neural circuit development and function; Genetic control of behavior; Sex differences in neurobiology
Research Interest:
Using primarily human pluripotent stem cell models, we examine astrocyte development in normal and pathological conditions, the role of astrocytes in modulating response to injury or stress, the role of altered RNA processing and translation in neural development, and the utility of glial precursor cells and their astrocytic progeny for cell transplantation therapy.
Neuroscience
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest: Organization and functions of the primate prefrontal cortex
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Develop a research program concentrating on identifying genetic modifiers of environmental factors in disease etiology using a combination of Drosophila genetics, cell culture, and rodent models
Advanced Retinal Imaging Alliance
OphthalmologyNeuroscience
Flaum Eye Institute
Biomedical Engineering
Research Interest: Developing technologies to measure blood flow in the living Eye to examine the condition of the retina in health and disease.
Biomedical Genetics
Ophthalmology
Research Interest:
Using patient-derived human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) to study the molecular mechanism of specific retinal and neurological diseases and applying that knowledge to pharmacologically target certain retinal disorders in patient-derived cells.
Research Interest:
Exploring the understudied and novel mechanisms by which neuromodulators mediate the interactions between neurons, astrocytes, and microglia in both normal and disease states
Brain & Cognitive Sciences
Research Interest: Activity in groups of neurons is dynamically coordinated to control information processing for goal-directed action
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Neurotoxicology, Etiology of neurobehavioral disease, Endocrine dysfunction, Synergistic Toxicity.
Neuroscience
Research Interest:
Understanding the neural circuit mechanisms that generate and shape complex feeding behaviors
Research Interest:
Use virtual reality (VR), multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and machine learning to elucidate the psychological and neural signatures of psychopathologies
Neuroscience
Flaum Eye Institute
Research Interest: Understanding neural mechanisms of human visual perception using psychophysics, brain stimulation and computational modeling. Current work includes the study of vision in stroke, low-vision, TBI, autism, cognitive aging and schizophrenia.
Research Interest:
Purinergic signaling in peripheral nociceptive nerve, neurovascular coupling, stroke injury and astrocytic communication
Flaum Eye Institute
Neuroscience
Pharmacology & Physiology
Research Interest:
Retinal degeneration and maladaptive plasticity in inner retinal circuits.
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Myotonic dystrophy, repeat expansion diseases, and therapeutic development for neuromuscular disorders.
Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory
Imaging SciencesNeuroscience
Research Interest:
Clinical applications of advanced neuroimaging techniques such as functional MRI (fMRI), MR Spectroscopy (MRS), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), morphometry, Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) and Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC)
Pharmacology & Physiology
Research Interest: Neural circuit mechanisms underlying cognitive control of sensorimotor functions
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Sensory regeneration of the inner ear, or hair-cell regeneration
Ophthalmology
Biomedical Engineering
Optics
Flaum Eye Institute
Research Interest: The latest optical technology arising from fields such as microscopy and astronomy to address questions about the fundamental limits of human vision as well as the causes of retinal disease.
Mitochondrial Research and Innovation Group
Pharmacology & PhysiologyAnesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine
Research Interest: Optogenetics to study the roles of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in mitochondrial physiology and stress signaling.
Neuroscience
Research Interest: Molecular and signaling mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in memory formation and mental health