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Faculty

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Many of our Primary and Secondary Research Faculty, in conjunction with their ongoing research projects, maintain essential teaching roles across multiple fields at the University. These roles include medical education, graduate education and undergraduate education, thus providing a link between current research advancements and students at all levels of University education.

Primary Faculty

Tanzil Arefin
Research Interest:

Neuroimaging techniques and computational tools to study the changes in brain functions and microstructures in animal models of human disorders

Edward Brown
Research Interest:

Multiphoton Laser Scanning Microscopy, novel in vivo imaging and measurement techniques, tumor biology, angiogenesis

Laurel Carney
Research Interest:

Auditory Neuroscience; neurophysiological, behavioral, and computational studies of hearing; signal processing for hearing aids.

Deborah Cory-Slechta
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.
Ian Dickerson
Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms of neuropeptide signal transduction
Ian Fiebelkorn
Research Interest:

Flexible allocation of the brain’s limited processing resources in attention, perception, and working memory

John Foxe
Research Interest:

Basic neurophysiology of schizophrenia and autism

Edward Freedman
Research Interest: Human neurophysiology in Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease, Dyslexia, Autism, Lysosomal Storage disorders, and sports concussions
Julie Fudge
Research Interest: Anatomy and neurochemistry of brain regions associated with symptoms in major psychiatric illnesses
Archan Ganguly
Research Interest:

Identifing molecular regulators of long-range trafficking of protein cargoes to distinct sub-domains of polarized cells, such as neurons

Martha Gdowski
Research Interest:

Medical, Graduate, and Undergraduate Education

David Kornack
Research Interest:

The biology of neural progenitor cells in developing and adult mammalian brain

Edmund Lalor
Research Interest:

The electrophysiology of human sensation, perception and cognition, especially in naturalistic environments.

Brittney Link
Research Interest:

Development of teaching and learning tools in anatomy education

Anne Luebke
Research Interest:

Role of cochlear outer hair cells in hearing and hearing loss

Ross Maddox
Research Interest: Auditory and multisensory processing in human listeners, using behavioral and electrophysiological methods.
Ania Majewska
Research Interest: Glia-neuron interactions during synaptic plasticity in health and disease
Sarah McConnell
Research Interest: Human Anatomy, Histology, Embryology, Neuroanatomy, Neuroprosthetics
Julian Meeks
Research Interest:

Investigation of the molecules, receptors, and neural circuits that influence social interactions, including the actions of mammalian pheromones

Samuel Norman-Haignere
Research Interest:

The neural computations that enable the perception of natural sounds, such as speech and music

M. Kerry O'Banion
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
John Olschowka
Research Interest: Mechanisms of neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration within the CNS, primarily Glial Cells and Vascular components of the brain.
Krishnan Padmanabhan
Research Interest: Experimental and Computational Approaches to Sensory Perception
Diane Piekut
Research Interest: Hypothalamus: neuropeptides, neuroplasticity, seizures
Gil Rivlis
Research Interest:

Neural control of movement; Computing and experiment control systems; Mathematics and statistics in neuroscience data analysis.

Lizabeth Romanski
Research Interest: Organization and functions of the primate prefrontal cortex
Lars Ross
Research Interest:

Multisensory integration, social neuroscience and autism spectrum disorder

Marc Schieber
Research Interest: Neural Control of Individuated Finger Movements
Nathan Smith
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

Adam Snyder
Research Interest: Activity in groups of neurons is dynamically coordinated to control information processing for goal-directed action
Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez
Research Interest:

Use virtual reality (VR), multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and machine learning to elucidate the psychological and neural signatures of psychopathologies

Michael Telias
Research Interest:

Retinal degeneration and maladaptive plasticity in inner retinal circuits.

Madalina Tivarus
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)

Kuan Hong Wang
Research Interest: Neural circuit mechanisms underlying cognitive control of sensorimotor functions
Patricia White
Research Interest: Sensory regeneration of the inner ear, or hair-cell regeneration

Secondary Faculty

Eric Anson
Eric Anson, Ph.D.
Research Interest:

Self-motion perception and adaptability of vestibular perception

Loisa Bennetto
Research Interest:

Neurocognitive and communication deficits in autism and other developmental disabilities

Rajnish Bharadwaj
Research Interest: Lysosomal and mitochondrial dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases
Benjamin Crane
Research Interest:

The interaction of vision, the vestibular system, and human disease on motion perception.

Greg DeAngelis
Research Interest: Visual neuroscience; multi-sensory integration; neural coding; linking neurons to perception
David Dodell-Feder
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.

Manoela Fogaça
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.

Frank Garcea
Research Interest:

Mechanisms supporting conceptual processing, language, and action function in patients with brain tumor or epilepsy.

Paul Geha
Research Interest: Understanding the neural mechanisms that transform nociceptive input to painful perceptions in humans and how these mechanisms change in chronic pain
Harris Gelbard
Research Interest: Molecular mechanisms and potential pharmacological and gene therapeutic interventions for neurologic disease associated with HIV-1 infection of the central nervous system.
Steven Goldman
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.
Manuel Gomez-Ramirez
Research Interest:

Understanding the neural mechanisms that mediate sensation and action with our hands.

Suzanne Haber
Research Interest:

Basal ganglia and degenerative diseases

Jennetta Hammond
Research Interest: Uncovering neuro-immune mechanisms driving synapse and neuron turnover as well as microglia dysregulation throughout the lifespan
Kenneth Henry
Research Interest:

Cochlear neurodegeneration, neural mechanisms for hearing in noise

Angela Hewitt
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.

J. Christopher Holt
Research Interest:

Synaptic pharmaco-physiology of vestibular efferent-afferent interactions

Krystel Huxlin
Research Interest:

Neural mechanisms of visual recovery after stroke; optical correlates and molecular substrates of corneal wound healing and nerve regeneration; LIRIC

Michelle Janelsins-Benton
Research Interest: Understanding clinical, psychological, and biological mechanisms of cognitive difficulties in cancer patients
Brian Keane
Research Interest:

Visual perceptual alterations in psychosis, behavioral psychophysics, eye-tracking, functional neuroimaging, and conceptual foundations of cognitive science

Emily Knight
Research Interest:

advance understanding of the neurophysiologic mechanisms underlying sensory perception in autism spectrum disorder

Jonathan Leckenby
Research Interest:

Peripheral nerve regeneration/degeneration and vascularized composite allotransplantation.

Hochang Lee
Research Interest: Developing innovative models for delivery behavioral health service for medical and surgical patients and prevention of neuropsychiatric morbidity (e.g. delirium, depression, and dementia) after major surgery among the elders.
Karlo Lizarraga Mendoza
Research Interest:

Optimizing the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of movement disorders with the use of neurophysiological techniques, and developing sustainable international collaborations that promote global equity in neurological education, research and patient care.

Margot Mayer-Pröschel
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.
Sergiy Nadtochiy
Research Interest: Human Structure and Function
Shawn Newlands
Research Interest: Vestibular anatomy and physiology, recovery from vestibular injury, vestibular control of head unrestrained gaze.
Thomas O'Connor
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
Alexander Paciorkowski
Research Interest: Pediatric Neurology, Human Genetics
Elise Piazza
Research Interest:

Understand the natural statistics of the building blocks of communication

Martina Poletti
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

Anton Porsteinsson
Research Interest:

Care and study of individuals with memory disorders

Douglas Portman
Research Interest: Neural circuit development and function; Genetic control of behavior; Sex differences in neurobiology
Souvarish Sarkar
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

Jesse Schallek
Research Interest: Developing technologies to measure blood flow in the living Eye to examine the condition of the retina in health and disease.
Steven Silverstein
Research Interest:

Impairments of perceptual function and organization in schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric disorders, their relationship to symptom emergence (e.g., in terms of altered predictive coding, or altered contextual modulation) and the possibility of performing visual remediation of low- and mid-level visual disturbances in these conditions.

Marissa Sobolewski-Terry
Research Interest:

Neurotoxicology, Etiology of neurobehavioral disease, Endocrine dysfunction, Synergistic Toxicity.

Gabriella Sterne
Research Interest:

Understanding the neural circuit mechanisms that generate and shape complex feeding behaviors

Duje Tadin
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.
Judy Thompson
Research Interest:

Schizophrenia, with a particular interest in the pathophysiology of positive symptoms

Charles Thornton
Research Interest: Myotonic dystrophy, repeat expansion diseases, and therapeutic development for neuromuscular disorders.
Ronald Wood
Research Interest: Behavioral Pharmacology and Toxicology; Substance Abuse; Inhalation Toxicology; Medications for Urologic Disorders (urge incontinence, interstitial cystitis, pain)
Houhui Xia
Research Interest: Molecular and signaling mechanisms of synaptic plasticity in memory formation and mental health

Emeritus Faculty

Paul Coleman
Paul D. Coleman, Ph.D.


Research Interest: Neurobiology of aging and mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease.
Barbara Davis
Research Interest: Human structure and function, prematriculation human biology, and medical education.
John Hansen
Research Interest:

Neuro-immune interactions, medical education, and faculty development

William O'Neill
Research Interest: Processing of complex acoustic signals in the central auditory system; echolocation; aging effects on central auditory system
Gary Paige
Research Interest: Gary D. Paige, MD, PhD, was the Kilian J. and Caroline F. Schmitt Professor and Chair of Neurobiology & Anatomy at the University of Rochester Medical Center, also holding joint appointments in Neurology, Ophthalmology, Otolaryngology, Biomedical Engineering, and Brain & Cognitive Science. His research focused on how the brain integrates and plastically adapts sensory inputs from the outside world (visual and auditory) with the internal senses (vestibular and somatosensory) to guide meaningful behavior through a cluttered environment.
Tatiana Pasternak
Research Interest:

Cortical Circuitry Underlying Memory-Guided Sensory Decisions

Robert Schor
Research Interest: Processing of spatial and temporal information by the vestibular system of mammals
Peter Shrager
Peter Shrager, Ph.D.
Research Interest:

Neuron-neuroglia interactions

Suzanne Stevens
Research Interest: Neural immune interactions

Adjunct Faculty

Farran Briggs
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.
Matthew Dye
Matthew W. Dye, Ph.D.

Peter Kaskan
Research Interest:

Visual Neuroscience; Learning, Motivation and Reward Guided Decision-Making; Emotion; Amygdala; Deep Brain Stimulation

Stephanos Kyrkanides
Research Interest:

Craniofacial development

Sarah Latchney
Research Interest:

Assistant Professor of Neurobiology at St. Mary's College of Maryland

Kevin Mazurek
Research Interest:

Neural control of voluntary movements

Sophie Molholm
Research Interest: Attention multisensory integration sensory and perceptual processing executive function
Jason Ozubko
Research Interest:

Cognitive and neuropsychological properties of human memory

Michele Saul
Research Interest:

Juvenile stress and the development of the amygdala.