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Faculty

Institute for Neural Engineering (INEM)
W Dalton Dietrich PhD

W. Dalton Dietrich, Ph.D.

Co-Director, Institute for Neural Engineering 
Scientific Director, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis
Senior Associate Dean for Discovery Science
Associate Director, Miami CTSI
Professor of Neurological Surgery, Neurology, 
Biomedical Engineering and Cell Biology

Dr. Dalton Dietrich is Scientific Director at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and the Kinetic Concepts Distinguished Chair in Neurosurgery at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.  He received his Ph.D. in Anatomy from the Medical College of Virginia in 1979 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Pharmacology at Washington University, St. Louis, MO, 1981. In 1981, Dr. Dietrich joined the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami, with a joint appointment in Cell Biology and Anatomy, and in 1993 attained the rank of Professor.  Dr. Dietrich served as Vice-Chairman for Basic Science in the Department of Neurology from 1995 to 1997, when he accepted the position of Scientific Director of The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. Dr. Dietrich also serves as the Senior Associate Dean for Discovery Science at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Institute for Neural Engineering at the University of Miami.

 
Suhrud M Rajguru PhD

Suhrud M. Rajguru, Ph.D.

Co-Director, Institute for Neural Engineering
Associate Professor Biomedical Engineering Department
Coleen Atkins PhD

Coleen Atkins, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Miami Project to Cure Paralysis

Coleen M. Atkins, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, Department of Neurological Surgery and Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Atkins received her undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota, her doctorate in neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Oregon Health & Sciences University and the University of Miami. The research objectives of Dr. Atkins laboratory are to develop therapeutics to treat cognitive dysfunction after traumatic brain injury (TBI). Currently, Dr. Atkins is studying synaptic loss after TBI in Alzheimer’s disease mouse models as well as investigating whether pre-exposure to chronic stress limits recovery after mild TBI. Dr. Atkins is a member of the National Neurotrauma Society, TEAM Neuroscience and the Society for Neuroscience and is President of the Miami Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. In 2013, she was awarded the Brain Injury Association of America’s Young Investigator Award. Dr. Atkins is highly active in community education to promote understanding of neuroscience to the general public.

Julia Dallman PhD

Julia Dallman, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Biology

Julia Dallman is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Biology at the University of Miami.  She helped design and now directs the UM Zebrafish Facility. Julia has twenty-five years of experience using animal models (sea squirt, fly, and zebrafish) to understand neurodevelopmental processes. Julia received her undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College.  She did her doctoral training in electrophysiology and developmental neuroscience with William Moody at the University of Washington, and post-doctoral training in molecular and chromatin biology and genetics with Gail Mandel and Paul Brehm at Stony Brook University. Her research seeks to understand how genetic mutations impact the development of neural circuits to produce behavioral phenotypes. She has helped to launch many collaborative studies with human geneticists and clinicians at UM and other universities that utilize zebrafish as a model for inherited disorders including forms of autism spectrum disorder caused by mutations in SHANK3 and SYNGAP1.