Welcome!

Polina Anikeeva, Ph.D., AMAX assistant professor, materials science and engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.

As the AMAX assistant professor in materials science and engineering at MIT, Polina Anikeeva , Ph.D., develops hybrid functional materials and devices for clinical applications that help bridge the gap between neuroscience research and industrial medical device creation. These materials and devices act as interpreters between man-made electronics and neural circuits through the conversion of electromagnetic (EM) field energy in the form of radio-frequency (RF) field or light into a change of the electrochemical potential across cellular membranes. Her current research is centered on development of novel, non-invasive methods for in vivo neural stimulation and design of opto-electronic devices for simultaneous recording and stimulation of neural circuits.

Stephen Back, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics, Neurology and Anesthesiology-Critical Care Medicine & Director of the Division of Pediatric Neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University-Doernbecher Children’s Hospital.

Stephen Back, M.D., Ph.D.is professor of pediatrics, neurology and anesthesiology-critical care medicine at Oregon Health & Science University-Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. He is director of the Division of Pediatric Neuroscience and holds the Clyde and Elda Munson Professorship in Pediatric Research. The current research interests of Dr. Back’s lab include: cellular, molecular and high field MRI studies to define chronic preterm cerebral gray and white matter lesions arising from hypoxia-ischemia in human, rodents and fetal sheep; role of the extracellular matrix in myelination failure in neonatal and adult white matter lesions; and the pathogenesis of cerebral white matter injury related to vascular cognitive impairment in the aging human brain. Dr. Back has published more than 75 original articles. He is a recipient of a Young Investigator Award from the Child Neurology Society, a Bugher Award from the American Heart Association and a Javits Merit Award from NINDS. His research has been supported by grants from NINDS, NIA, the March of Dimes and the American Heart Association.

Trygve Bakken, M.D., Ph.D., scientist, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Wash.

Trygve Bakken, M.D., Ph.D., is interested in the development and evolution of circuit elements in the mammalian brain, which will help elucidate the pathology of neuropsychiatric disease. This fits within a larger effort at the Institute to quantify the diversity of neurons and glia in human and mouse neocortex to build better models of the neural circuits underlying vision. He uses computational and statistical approaches to characterize gene expression dynamics during brain development using high anatomical and temporal resolution data (including the NIH Blueprint Non-Human Primate Atlas) and to classify individual neurons into cell types based on their transcriptomes.

Joseph F. Quinn, M.D., director of Parkinson Center and Movement Disorders Program, professor of Neurology at Oregon Health & Science University.

Dr. Quinn specializes in general neurology and dementia. The professor of Neurology received his medical degree from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, in 1990. He completed his residency training at OHSU, and his fellowship in Geriatric Neurology at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Quinn received his board certification in Neurology in 1997.

Katja Brose, Ph.D., editor/executive editor, Neuron/Cell Press

Katja Brose, Ph.D. is the editor in chief of Neuron. She is responsible for the strategic and operational management of the Cell Press Neurosciences Portfolio, including Neuron, Trends in Neurosciences and Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Additionally, she oversees the development of strategy for review related content for Cell Press journals, including the Trends Reviews journals and is a member of the Cell Press Senior Management Team.

Michael Buice, Ph.D., assistant investigator, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Wash.

Michael Buice, Ph.D., is an expert in theoretical and computational neuroscience at the Allen Institute, where he uses computational modeling to explore the implications of theories of neural processing. Dr. Buice has developed new techniques for identifying organization of complex neural circuits based on sparse sampling of neuronal activity. He is interested in neural implementations of Bayesian inference and mechanisms by which prior knowledge is encoded, as well as the implications that coding efficiency has on the structure of neural circuits. This work informs how network structure relates to network activity and how that activity corresponds to the statistics of perceived stimuli.

Kim Burchiel, M.D., John Raaf Professor and chairman, Department of Neurological Surgery, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Ore.

Dr. Burchiel has pursued a career-long interest in physiology of nociception and neuropathic pains, including trigeminal neuralgia. He has also published widely on the neurosurgical treatment of movement disorders, functional and stereotactic neurosurgery that encompasses a broad spectrum of surgical and nonsurgical treatments to manage and restore neurological function, and image-guided neurosurgery.

Damien Fair, P.A.-C., Ph.D., assistant professor, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Ore.

Damien Fair, P.A.-C., Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert on the application of neural network analysis to functional magnetic resonance imaging. His research focuses on mechanisms and principles that underlie the developing brain. The majority of this work uses functional MRI and resting state functional connectivity MRI to assess typical and atypical populations. He has been assessing the feasibility of using various functional and structural MRI techniques in translational studies of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism to develop ways to better characterize individual patients with these psychopathologies to help guide future diagnostic, therapeutic and genetic studies. Dr. Fair was a recipient of the 2013 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Jim Galbraith, Ph.D., associate professor, Oregon Health & Science University Center for Spatial Systems Biomedicine, Portland, Ore.

James Galbraith, Ph.D., a recent transplant to OHSU from the NIH, combines biology, engineering and optic principles to investigate fundamental mechanisms of processes such as wiring the brain, synaptogenesis, cell division and cell motility. These processes all fall under the umbrella of the moleculome, a characterization of reproducible molecular behaviors that give rise to a specific cellular function. His work uses a combination of imaging, biophysics and neuro/cell biology and emerging technologies to investigate how cells make decisions in processes as diverse as motility, synaptogenesis, plasticity and metastasis. He also investigates the molecular behaviors that result in the formation of signaling scaffolds and give rise to the transduction of information at these scaffolds.

Terri Gilbert, Ph.D., application scientist, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Wash.

Terri Gilbert, Ph.D., joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2010 and currently spearheads the user support program for the Allen Brain Atlas resources, designing and delivering live trainings and webinars to global audiences. Gilbert is a high-level science communicator with over 15 years of experience delivering technical presentations and training sessions to a variety of audiences, and has held positions in both academia and industry. She was a founder of the Seattle Science Café, Science on Tap and is a current Pacific Science Center Science Communication Fellow. Gilbert has a B.S. in physics from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. She received her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of New Mexico, School of Medicine and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of New Mexico and the University of Washington.

Pierre-Antoine Gourraud, Ph.D., assistant professor, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif.

Pierre-Antoine Gourraud, Ph.D., is involved in paving the way for the next generation of treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). He develops new models to analyze the contributions of genetic variants to MS in family-based and case-controls design. He developed bioinformatics tools for the study of MHC microsatellites for the dbMHC website at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, performed numerous genetic association studies on various diseases (including rheumatoid arthritis and leukemia), and conducted population genetics analyses of European populations (HLA and KIR genes). He developed software dedicated to statistical genetics in the estimation of linkage disequilibrium (Estihaplo) and designed an algorithm to help search for hematopoietic stem cell donors for the treatment of hematological diseases (Easymatch). He has more than 60 publications and patents.

Kathleen Grant, Ph.D., professor, Department of Behavioral Neurosciences, Oregon Health & Science University; head of the Division of Neuroscience, Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), Portland, Ore.

Kathleen Grant, Ph.D.’s laboratory uses animal models to study the behavioral pharmacology related to alcohol. Her work has focused on how subjective effects are enhanced or antagonized by pharmacological pretreatment, genetic background or organismal state (e.g., stage of life, stress, menstrual cycle phase, etc.). Additionally the lab uses self-administration methodology to investigate the addictive basis of ethanol in populations of monkeys to determine the influence of genetic composition, sex, age and stress on the risk for heavy drinking. The consequences of heavy ethanol consumption are investigated with changes in functional genomics and proteomics, in vivo imaging with MRI/MRS, and endocrinological status. Along with this longitudinal approach, the lab has identified a combination of soluble proteins that serve as a sensitive marker for any alcohol use.

Hank Greely, J.D., professor, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.

Henry T. Greely, J.D., is chair of California’s Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee, a member of the Advisory Council of the NIH's National Institute for General Medical Sciences, a member of the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law of the National Academies, and a member of the Neuroscience Forum of the Institute of Medicine. Professor Greely specializes in the ethical, legal and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics or stem cell research. He frequently serves as an advisor on California and national and international policy issues. He has served as co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. Professor Greely chairs the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and directs both the law school’s Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Robert Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder, CEO and president, Second Sight Medical Products; adjunct assistant professor, electrical engineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Calif.

Robert Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., is president and CEO of Second Sight, a company that creates prosthetic devices that can bring sight to people with blindness. Dr. Greenberg has worked in the field of retinal prosthetics for more than 20 years. Second Sight’s retinal implant, Argus II, also called a bionic eye, translates visual images as electrical stimulation to the wearer’s retina, in order to transmit that information along the optic nerve to the brain. The prosthesis is currently in use in Europe and received FDA approval for use in the United States for patients with retinitis pigmentosa. Greenberg says applying electrical engineering to medical questions has been his dream since his undergraduate work in electrical and biomedical engineering at Duke. Previously, Dr. Greenberg served as a medical officer and lead reviewer for IDEs and 510(k)s at the Office of Device Evaluation at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the Neurological Devices Division.

Kurt Haas, Ph.D., Tula Foundation investigator, Brain Research Centre; MSFHR scholar, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Kurt Haas, Ph.D., studies the neuroplastic mechanisms in normal development and their implications for a range of brain developmental disorders, such as autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy. Using a variety of in vivo imaging and microscopy techniques, his explores how developing brain neural networks encode sensory information, and how this encoding changes in response to plasticity inducing training, both rapid growth dynamics over seconds to minutes, and long term changes over days.

Bill Howe, Ph.D., associate director, eScience Institute, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

Bill Howe, Ph.D., is the associate director of the UW eScience Institute and holds an affiliate assistant professor appointment in computer science and engineering, where he studies data management, analytics and visualization systems for science applications. Dr. Howe is developing new visual algebraic techniques and tools for cloud-based scientific computing. He has received two Jim Gray Seed Grant awards from Microsoft Research for work on managing environmental data, and co-authored what are currently the most-cited papers from both VLDB 2010 and SIGMOD 2012. Dr. Howe serves on the program and organizes committees for a number of conferences in the area of databases and scientific data management, and serves on the Science Advisory Board of the SciDB project.

David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., professor, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Ore.; co-inventor, optical coherence tomography (OCT)

David Huang, M.D., Ph.D., is the Weeks Professor of Ophthalmic Research and a professor of ophthalmology and biomedical engineering at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). He leads the Center for Ophthalmic Optics and Lasers (www.COOLLab.net) and the Advanced Imaging in Glaucoma Study (www.AIGStudy.net). Dr. Huang is known for his innovations in applying laser and optical technology to eye diseases. He is a co-inventor of optical coherence tomography (OCT), an imaging technology that has been applied to the measurement of eye structures with unprecedented precision. Dr. Huang was a co-recipient of the 2012 Champalimaud Vision Award, the largest prize in any field of medicine, for his role in the invention of OCT. His seminal article on optical coherence tomography, published in Science in 1991, has been cited more than 6,000 times.

Jeff Iliff, Ph.D., assistant professor, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Ore.; adjunct assistant professor, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, N.Y.

Jeff Iliff, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Iliff was part of a team that identified a critical role of a paravascular (glympahtic) system in the brain that removes waste products during sleep. In addition to his recent work on the role of sleep, Dr. Iliff's research follows two main paths: The first, exploration of how the glial cells in the brain contribute to maintaining the proper environment for neuronal function and how their failure in conditions such as vascular dementia, stroke and traumatic brain injury leads to neurodegeneration. The second seeks to define the basic cellular mechanisms by which brain blood flow is coordinated up and down the vascular tree. His is seeking to define the cellular and molecular changes that occur in the aging brain that cause the glymphatic pathway to fail, and how those changes might be reversed in the prevention or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Iliff also holds a joint appointment as an adjunct assistant professor in the Center for Translational Neuromedicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Leen Kawas, Ph.D., CEO and president, M3 Biotechnology, Inc. Seattle, Wash.

Leen Kawas, Ph.D., co-inventor and the CEO of M3 Biotechnology, Inc, , plays a scientific role in the development of novel therapeutics that target hepatocyte growth factor and has directed several aspects of relevant research funded by grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH), Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery and Michael J Fox Foundations. Her research was instrumental in the early development of MM-201 as a neurodegenerative disease drug candidate and thus set the scientific foundation for the development of M3 Biotechnology. Her work resulted in the discovery of a novel approach to drug design that yields allosteric regulators of large-growth-factor proteins. Dr. Kawas’ goal and passion is entrepreneurship that leads to disease modifying pharmaceuticals that address critical unmet medical needs.

Seong-Gi Kim, Ph.D., director and professor, Center for Neuroscience Imaging Center, Institute for Basic Science and Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea

Seong-Gi Kim, Ph.D., is professor of radiology and the Paul C. Lauterbur Chair in Imaging Research at the University of Pittsburgh and he recently became the Director of the Center for Neuroscience Imaging Research at Sungyunkwan University in South Korea. The major emphasis is to create an open research environment and to encourage synergetic, multi-modal, multidisciplinary, creative neuroscience research. Dr. Kim’s research has been foundational in developing and furthering the understanding of the in vivo imaging techniques that provide information on function, physiology and anatomy. His work continues to shed light on the relationship between neural activity and hemodynamic responses.

Walter Koroshetz, M.D., director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Bethesda, Md.

Walter Koroshetz, M.D., became the director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) in October 2014. Previously, he served as deputy director of NINDS under Dr. Story Landis. Together they directed program planning and budgeting, and oversaw the scientific and administrative functions of the Institute. He has held leadership roles in a number of NIH and NINDS programs including the NIH’s BRAIN Initiative, the Traumatic Brain Injury Center collaborative effort between the NIH intramural program and the Uniformed Health Services University, and the multi-year work to develop and establish the NIH Office of Emergency Care Research to coordinate NIH emergency care research and research training.

Jeanne Link, Ph.D., professor, Diagnostic Radiology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, Ore.

Dr. Link recently joined OHSU as director of radiochemistry research. She is a radiochemist whose work focuses on the development of new radiopharmaceuticals for imaging. For the last 20 years her primary focus has involved translational quantitative imaging of response to therapy of cancer, drug transport in the brain and assessing cardiac sympathetic neuronal / receptor function using positron emission tomography (PET).

Nuno Macarico da Costa, Ph.D., assistant investigator, neural coding, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Wash.

Nuno Macarico da Costa, Ph.D., leads the Network Anatomy group in its efforts to map the wiring diagram of the mouse neocortex and its functional connectivity. His current research focuses on describing the wiring diagram of the mouse primary visual cortex and investigating the computations implemented by its architecture. Using state-of-the-art light and electron microscopy techniques combined with the power of genetics of the mouse animal model. He is interested in how conserved the architecture is over different cortical areas and species, how general are its operations and how these operations finally translate to behavior.

Alex MacKay, Ph.D., professor, Departments of Radiology and Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Canada

Alex MacKay, Ph.D., is the director of the UBC MRI Research Centre. His research program is dedicated to the use of magnetic resonance (MR) to investigate pathological processes in the brain. Before the full potential of MRI and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in medicine can be realized, fundamental research is required to understand the physics behind the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signal from tissue. His research has focused on developing quantitative interpretations of biomedical NMR results in terms of structure, dynamics and composition at the molecular and cellular levels.

Dr. MacKay has been doing myelin water imaging for more than two decades. His measurements of myelin are providing new insights into the mechanisms of demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis (MS).

Helen Mayberg, M.D., professor, psychiatry, neurology, and radiology; Dorothy C. Fuqua Chair, Psychiatric Neuroimaging and Therapeutics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Ga.

Helen Mayberg, M.D., a neurologist by training, heads a multidisciplinary depression research program dedicated to the study of brain circuits in depression. Her lab’s primary focus is to develop imaging and physiological-based algorithms that will optimize treatment selection at all stages of the illness. Her imaging findings provided the foundation for development and testing of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for patients with treatment resistant depression. She was recently named as one of Emory University’s “Game Changers” for her pioneering DBS surgery research. These DBS studies aim to refine, optimize and extend the potential of this treatment strategy with experiments designed to characterize and define mechanisms mediating DBS response and to develop biomarkers that will improve patient selection, enhance precision of surgical targeting and optimize stimulation parameters.

Jeremy Miller, Ph.D., scientist, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Wash.

Jeremy Miller, Ph.D., joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2011 to identify and characterize robust gene expression signatures in adult human brain as part of the Allen Human Brain Atlas project, and has extended his study to transcriptional atlases of developing human and non-human primate, traumatic brain injury and glioblastoma. As part of the human cell types group, he is especially interested in ongoing projects aimed at characterizing cortical cell types in humans, and in seeing how these cell types compare with those identified in other species.

Victor Miranda, M.D., M.B.A., chief medical officer-neurology, GE Healthcare

Dr. Miranda is a seasoned Medical Device executive with extensive domestic and international experience in marketing, medical, and clinical affairs, and leads the GE & NFL Clinical Collaboration. He has created and managed processes for post market clinical trials, investigator initiated studies (IIS), voice of the customer input into new product development, and health economics and reimbursement. He has worked to enhance Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) and Medical Device Product Development, Global Clinical Trial Management, and KOL Management and Development in the fields of Osteoporosis, Electrophysiology (EP), Ophthalmology and Diabetes. He has directed clinical claims and accuracy studies globally during the product development process, conducted studies that provided clinical evidence/outcomes and directed the automation initiative to manage Investigator Initiated Studies (IIS) through a web portal. He has created strategies for several international markets as well as Medical Advisory Boards for the US, Europe, Middle East, Africa (EMEA) and Latin America.

Hiroyuki Nakai, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Molecular & Medical Genetics, Oregon Health & Science University; associate scientist, Division of Neuroscience, Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), Portland, Ore.

Hiroyuki Nakai, M.D., Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Molecular & Medical Genetics at Oregon Health & Science University. Dr. Nakai has been studying adeno-associated virus (AAV) and its application for gene therapy for nearly 20 years in both industry and academia. The ultimate goals of his research are to completely understand the biology of AAV and cellular biology associated with AAV vector infection/transduction, and to develop new AAV vector-mediated gene and cell therapy approaches to successfully treat various human diseases. To attain these goals, his team takes multidisciplinary approaches that combine contemporary protein engineering, massively parallel sequencing, high performance computing, evolutionary computing, computational modeling, bioinformatics and biostatistics, as well as conventional molecular, structural and cellular biology approaches.

Lydia Ng, Ph.D., director of technology, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Wash.

Lydia Ng, Ph.D., currently leads the atlas development team responsible for the design and implementation of the Allen Institute’s web applications as well as visualization and data mining tools. Her research background includes image processing and analysis, image registration, data analysis and mining. Her team pioneers multi-scale neuroinformatics visualization techniques for viewing and analysis of online microarrays, magnetic resonance imaging, RNA sequencing, and situ hybridization databases. Ng is also an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Washington.

Jeff Ojemann, M.D., professor, neurological surgery, University of Washington Medical School, Seattle, Wash.

Dr. Ojemann is a UW professor of neurological surgery with a particular interest in the surgical treatment of epilepsy and of tumors near the brain tissue needed for thinking and speaking. He has been using electrocorticography (ECoG), recording from implanted electrodes on the brain surface, to answer basic neuroscience questions as well as to develop tools for clinical and rehabilitative applications. Using ECoG coupled with biofeedback, his lab is testing the capacity of patients to control the specificity of their brainwaves at an electrode location.

Carlos Peña, Ph.D., director of the Division of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Washington, D.C.

Carlos Peña, Ph.D., is division director for the Division of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices, in the Office of Device Evaluation, Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Peña is involved in all aspects of the safety and effectiveness review of neurostimulation, neurodiagnostic, neurosurgical, neurotherapeutic and physical medicine devices. He also serves as a principal investigator on a FDA-sponsored clinical study focused on the treatment of pediatric neurologic disorders. Prior to joining CDRH, Dr. Peña served on detail as assistant director for emerging technologies in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in the Executive Office of the President of the United States. His areas of expertise included science, technology, policy, analysis and regulatory matters related to biology, neuroscience, biotechnology, emerging technologies, agriculture and STEM education.

Steve Perlmutter, Ph.D., associate professor, neuroscience and physiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

Steve Perlmutter, Ph.D., is interested in neural processes that account for the spectacularly voluntary movements of the arm and hand found in primates. His research has elucidated how mechanisms of motor control in the spine and cerebral cortex transform information about the intended goal of a movement into a spatial and temporal pattern of muscle activity to achieve a desired behavior. Using neurophysiological, anatomical, behavioral and computational techniques, his work identifies the underlying neural circuits of behavior, and with local iontophoresis, characterizes specific neurotransmitter and neuromodulatory systems. Dr. Perlmutter is also a member of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering

Chris E. Rivera, president and CEO, Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (WBBA)

Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (WBBA) president since January, 2009, Chris Rivera has developed the organization’s strategic direction to support the growth of life sciences in Washington state, one of Washington state’s largest and fastest growing economic industries. Since 2009, Mr. Rivera has also been appointed to several leadership positions, including; the Governor’s Higher Education Task Force, the Washington Global Health Funding Commission, and was the chairman for the national Council of State Bioscience Associations.

Prior to the WBBA, Mr. Rivera spent more than 25 years in numerous leadership roles in the biotechnology industry, including founder and CEO of Hyperion Therapeutics, as well as SVP at Tercica and Genzyme, amongst other leadership positions in the life science industry.

Dan Rizzuto, Ph.D., director of cognitive neuromodulation, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pa.

Daniel Rizzuto, Ph.D., manages strategic neurotechnology initiatives and leads large-scale R&D collaborations. Dr. Rizzuto is currently leading the development of a device to restore memory in patients with memory disorders as part of the DARPA RAM project at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously managed the development of a high-throughput functional brain imaging pipeline at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, led the clinical research program at the Swedish Neuroscience Institute and developed an implantable brain stimulator for patients with major depression at Northstar Neuroscience.

Anna Roe, Ph.D., Division of Neuroscience, Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), Portland, Ore.; director, Zhejiang University Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology (ZIINT), Hangzhou, China

Anna Roe, Ph.D.'s research focuses on understanding how behavior arises from functional organization of the cerebral cortex. Using fMRI, optical imaging, electrophysiological and anatomical methods in monkeys, she has shown that networks of 200-500 µm sized processing modules underlie simple and complex sensory percepts (e.g., visual shape, surface, motion and depth percepts, along with tactile vibrotactile percepts), sensory attention, and motor (reach and grasp) behavior. She has also developed in vivo functional tract tracing methods (focal electrical, infrared neural and optogenetic stimulation combined with optical imaging and fMRI) to examine circuits underlying these behaviors.

Terry Sejnowski, Ph.D., Francis Crick Professor at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, Calif.

Terrence Sejnowski, Ph.D., is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and holds the Francis Crick Chair at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies. A pioneer in computational neuroscience, Dr. Sejnowski is a member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, and one of only 10 living persons to be a member of all three national academies. His research goal is to understand the principles that link brain to behavior. He is interested in the hippocampus, believed to play a major role in learning and memory; and the cerebral cortex, which holds our knowledge of the world and how to interact with it. He hopes to gain new knowledge of how the human brain is capable of learning and storing memories, which may help combat Alzheimer's disease and other disorders that rob people of the critical ability to remember faces, names, places and events.

Matt Smits, chair, Oregon Bioscience Association, Portland, Ore.

Matt Smits is chair of the Oregon Bioscience Association since January 2014. He has held various leadership positions within the medical device industry for over 25 years. Mr. Smits has successfully brought several electromedical devices to market, translating bioscience into products for patients. Currently, he manages Strategic Programs for Micro Systems Engineering, Inc., a global manufacturer of advanced microelectronics in active implantable medical devices, including cardiac and neuro devices. Prior to that, Mr. Smits was director of Strategy and Business Development for TE Medical, a global manufacturer of custom engineered micro-interconnect solutions for medical devices. He also led the R&D, product solutions, and clinical trials of next-generation devices, such as newborn hearing screeners based on automated auditory brainstem response and myoelectrically controlled prosthetic devices for traumatic amputees.

Staci Sorensen, Ph.D., scientist II, Allen Institute for Brain Science

As a scientist in the Mouse Cell Types group, Staci Sorensen, Ph.D., investigates the range of morphologically defined cell types in the primary visual cortex and the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus. This is part of a larger effort to understand the functional components that make up the visual thalamocortical circuit. She uses several microscopy (multi-photon and resonant confocal) techniques in combination with in vitro and in vivo single cell labeling methods to generate a 3-D structural description of individual neurons, which in turn can be used to map the complex organization of different cell types within neural circuits in specific brain regions.

Don Tucker, Ph.D., professor of psychology, University of Oregon; CEO, Electrical Geodesics, Inc., Eugene, Ore.

Don Tucker, Ph.D., is CEO and chief scientist at Electrical Geodesics, Inc. He has spent his career developing electrophysiological techniques, many employed in his research studying how motivation and emotion regulate cognition. To assess the neural activity associated with emotional states and cognitive operations, this research includes computerized analysis of the electrical activity of the brain with dense array EEG measures. Under Professor Tucker, EGI has developed a wide suite of electrophysiological and brain stimulation tools, which are used around the world in clinical settings as well as basic science laboratories.

Lawrence L. Wald, Ph.D., associate professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.; associate professor, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Mass.; associate biophysicist, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Mass.; director, MGH NMR Core

Lawrence L. Wald, Ph.D., is the director of the Massachusetts General Hospital NMR Core imaging facility at the MGH Martinos Center. His research interests focus on magnetic resonance methodology for high-field brain imaging. Dr. Wald’s recent work has explored the benefits and challenges of highly parallel detection and its application to accelerated image encoding and parallel excitation. Additionally, he is working on ultra-high-field MRI (7 Tesla) methodology for brain imaging and improved methods to apply to the Human Connectome Project. He is an author on approximately 110 publications. Dr. Wald enjoys an active role in educational programs at MGH and MIT and through the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine (ISMRM), the Organization of Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) and Radiological Society of North America (RSNA.) He was recently elected as a fellow of the ISMRM and to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).

Kurt Weaver, Ph.D., research assistant professor, University of Washington, Seattle, Wash.

Kurt Weaver’s research focuses on the relationship between complex and integrative nlereural systems and higher-level cognitive and behavioral function. Current efforts combine both functional imaging (e.g., fMRI) modalities and invasive electrophysiology to probe cognition as a function of interactions across widely distributed yet highly interconnected cortical networks. The team primarily works with epilepsy patients, capitalizing on the unique clinical setting of sub-dural, cortical electrophysiology in humans (referred to as electrocorticography or ECoG). They leverage the high fidelity of direct recordings from the human cortex to interrogate relationships between brain organization, functional connectivity and neuropsychological function. A second focus is exploring, from a neurophysiological as well as brain metabolic perspective (through use of magnetic resonance spectroscopy or MRS), the functional role of default mode network (DMN) on memory and attentional function. The goal is to better understand the natural physiology of cortical systems including the DMN, leading to a greater mechanistic understanding of how these systems contribute to neurological disease.