Affiliated Faculty


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Kevin Alloway

Professor Emeritus of Neural and Behavioral Sciences

Email: kda1@psu.edu


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Laura Cabrera

Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Career Chair in Neuroethics

Email: lcabrera@psu.edu

Research Interests: neuroethics; ethics and social implications of emerging technologies, science, technology and society; public perceptions

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/lcabrera


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Huanyu “Larry” Cheng

Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Assistant Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics

Email: huanyu.cheng@psu.edu

Research Interests: material composites; mechanics of materials; structural design; transient electronics; soft deformable multimodality devices

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/chenggroup


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Francesco Costanzo

Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Professor of Mathematics
Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Email: fxc8@psu.edu

Research Interests: biomechanics of brain tissue and blood; multiscale modeling of continuum systems, computation mechanics and finite elements; computational microscoustofluidics

Lab/Personal Website: fmcostanzo.com


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Nikki Crowley

Assistant Professor of Biology
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Email: nzc27@psu.edu

Research Interests: neuropeptidergic modulation of discrete neural systems and circuits in the context of psychiatric disorders using electrophysiological, pharmacological, imaging, and behavioral approaches

Lab/Personal Website: crowley-lab.org


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Carina Curto

Professor of Mathematics

Email: cpc16@psu.edu

Research Interests: neural network theory and neural coding; topological data analysis; applications of algebra, combinatorics, and dynamcial systems to neuroscience

Lab/Personal Website: personal.psu.edu/cpc16


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Saptarshi Das

Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering

Email: sud70@psu.edu

Research Interests: bio-inspired solid state devices; neuromorphic computing; smart sensors; energy-efficient electronics

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/sdas


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Corina Drapaca

Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics

Email: csd12@psu.edu

Research Interests: multiscale and multiphysics modeling; nonlocality and entanglement of brain structure and functions; continuum mechanics; medical image processing; elastography; models of tumor growth; computational analysis


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Patrick Drew

Associate Director, Penn State Neuroscience Institute
Huck Distinguished Associate Professor of Neural Engineering and Neurosurgery
Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics
Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Email: pjd17@psu.edu

Research Interests: neurovascular coupling and cerebrospinal fluid flow; brain mechanics; 2-photon microscopy, electrophysiology, optical imaging, and optogenetics and chemogentics; behavioral monitoring; computational modeling

Lab/Personal Website: www.drew-lab.org


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Andrew Geronimo

Assistant Research Professor of Neurosurgery

Email: ageronimo@pennstatehealth.psu.edu

Research Interests: brain-computer interfaces using invasive and non-invasive measures; assistive technology; statistical modeling; digital health monitoring; motor neuron disease

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/geronimo


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Bruce Gluckman

Director, CNE
Director, CDNE Training Program
Professor of Engineering Sciences and Mechanics
Professor of Neurosurgery
Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Email: bjg18@psu.edu

Research Interests: multimodal measurement of brain function and dysfunction especially in animal models; mechanisms of instability in epilepsy; seizure associated spreading depolarization; sleep regulation and its impact in neurological diseases; linking computation modeling of neural systems to physical systems

Lab/Personal Website: sites.esm.psu.edu/wiki/research:bjg18:start


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Xiaogang Hu

Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Neurorehabilitation Associate Professor

Email: xxh120@psu.edu

Research Interests: Mechanical Sciences; Sensors & Controls; Bi-directional neural-machine interface, neural rehabilitation, control of biological and bionic hands, assistive technologies, and health monitoring

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/nml1/


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Xuemei Huang

Associate Dean for Physician-Scientist Development
Distinguished Professor of Neurology
Chief, Division of Movement Disorders
Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology
Distinguished Professor of Neurosurgery
Distinguished Professor of Kinesiology

Email: xuemei@psu.edu

Research Interests: multidisciplinary approaches to understanding both etiology and neural mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases; drug mechanisms; brain neurodegeneration related to disease and aging

Lab/Personal Website: research.med.psu.edu/brain


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Vladimir Itskov

Associate Professor of Mathematics

Email: vui1@psu.edu


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Dezhe Jin

Associate Professor of Physics

Email: dzj2@psu.edu

Research Interests: neural mechanisms of birdsong; auditory system, neuromorphic computing, and neural image processing

Lab/Personal Website: personal.psu.edu/dzj2


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Mehdi Kiani

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering

Email: muk42@psu.edu

Research Interests: integrated circuits; wireless neural interface; implantable medical devices

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/icsl


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Yongsoo Kim

Associate Professor of Neural and Behavioral Sciences

Email: yuk17@psu.edu

Research Interests: cellular architecture of the nervous system and how it supports cognitive functions; high-resolution 3D brain mapping; neurodevelopment, neurodegeneration, and neurovasculature; serial two-photon tomography; light sheet fluorescent microscopy; systems neuroscience; neuroinformatics

Lab/Personal Website: kimlab.io


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Sri-Rajasekhar Kothapalli

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Penn State Cancer Institute

Email: szk416@psu.edu

Research Interests: functional ultrasound imaging; photoacoustic imaging of brain activity; implantable focused ultrasound devices; blood brain barrier opening

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/biophotonicsandultrasoundimaginglab


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Reuben Kraft

Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Email: rhk12@psu.edu

Research Interests: computational brain biomechanics; sensor enabled cloud based brain computing; design and modeling of neural implants

Lab/Personal Website: psucompbio.org


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Nina Lauharatanahirun

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health

Email: nbl5194@psu.edu

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/decisionneurolab/


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Runze Li

Eberly Chair in Statistics
Professor of Public Health Science

Email: ril4@psu.edu

Research Interests: high-dimensional data modeling and inference; nonparametric and semiparametric regression modeling; statistical applications to social behaviorial science, neural science, and engineering

Lab/Personal Website: personal.psu.edu/~ril4


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Xiaojun “Lance” Lian

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Email: lian@psu.edu

Research Interests: human stem cell engineering; stem cell differentiation; CRISPR-Cas9, base, and prime editors for genome editing; modified RNA technology

Lab/Personal Website: bme.psu.edu/labs/Lian-lab


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Xiao Liu

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Institute for Computational and Data Sciences

Email: xxl213@psu.edu

Research Interests: multimodal neuroimaging techniques and computational methods; function-related signal features in healthy and diseased brains

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/mcnl


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Jean-Michel Mongeau

Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Email: jmmongeau@psu.edu

Research Interests: neuromechanics and control of aerial and terrestrial locomotion in animals and machines; predicting the organization of animal control systems through mathematical frameworks; testing predictions using electrophysiology, 2-photon imaging, optogenetics

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/mongeau


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Ibrahim Ozbolat

Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics

Email: ito1@psu.edu

Research Interests: bioprinting; tissue engineering

Lab/Personal Website: personal.psu.edu/ito1


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Anirban Paul

Assistant Professor of Neural and Behavioral Sciences

Email: amp7167@psu.edu

Research Interests: establishment of terminal cell-type identity during neurodevelopment and neurodevelopmental disorders; single-cell signatures of cellular state in addiction; cell-type specific risk and resilience in aging and Alzheimer’s disease; technology development for single-cell genomics and cell-type specific gene targeting

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/paullab


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Elizabeth Proctor

Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery
Assistant Professor of Pharmacology
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Assistant Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics

Email: eproctor@psu.edu

Research Interests: systems biology of neurodegenerative disease; immunometabolic coupling and inter-cell-type communications in the brain; computational modeling of disease mechanisms across multiple length scales; statistical modeling, complex networks, and machine learning

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/proctorlab


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Joan Richtsmeier

Distinguished Professor of Anthropology

Email: jta10@psu.edu

Research Interests: craniofacial development and disease; imaging of biological form; mouse models of craniofacial disease; quantitative study of biological form and form change; craniofacial morphology and dysmorphology; evolutionary developmental biology; relationships between ontogentic mechanisms and phylogenetic change; molecular basis of craniofacial development

Lab/Personal Website: getahead.la.psu.edu


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Alok Sinha

Professor of Mechanical Engineering

Email: axs22@psu.edu

Research Interests: neural control; wave localization; robotics; nanosystems


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Grayson Sipe

Assistant Professor of Biology

Email: gos5257@psu.edu

Research Interests: Studying the molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive shifts in arousal, which are crucial for understanding maladaptive arousal in neuropsychiatric disorders such as anxiety and addiction


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Jian Yang

Professor of Biomedical Engineering

Email: jxy30@psu.edu

Research Interests: design and biomedical applications of citrate biomaterials; skin, blood vessel, bone, cartilage, and nerve regeneration; micro/nano-composites for orthopedic devices; bioinspired adhesives for wound healing; materials, cells, tissue bioimaging using fluorescence, MRI, or photoacoustic imaging; immune cell-mediated cancer drug delivery; point-of-care chloride sensing for cystic fibrosis diagnosis

Lab/Personal Website: bme.psu.edu/labs/Yang-lab

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Cunjiang Yu

Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Associate Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics; Biomedical Engineering

Email: cmy5358@psu.edu

Lab/Personal Website: yuresearch.github.io/

 


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Nanyin Zhang

Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Professor of Electrical Engineering

Email: nuz2@psu.edu

Research Interests: functional MRI; brain networks; neural modulation

Lab/Personal Website: sites.psu.edu/zhanglab1


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Tao Zhou

Assistant Professor

Email: tzz5199@psu.edu

Research Interests: Engineering Science and Mechanics; Biomedical Engineering 

 
 

About

The Penn State Center for Neural Engineering is a large, interdisciplinary research group that brings together neural engineering-focused researchers from the Penn State College of Engineering, the College of Medicine, the Materials Research Institute, and the Eberly College of Science. Chartered in June 2007, the center occupies 22,000 square feet of space in the Millennium Science Complex.

Center for Neural Engineering

Millennium Science Complex

The Pennsylvania State University

University Park, PA 16802