Program Faculty

Mary Behan, Ph.D. (Primary trainer)
Professor - Comparative Biosciences
- Age and gender effects on respiratory control

Ruth Benca, MD, Ph.D. (Secondary trainer)
Professor - Psychiatry
- Central neural mechanisms regulating sleep/light interactions. She collaborates with Dr. Behan.

Gerald Bisgard, DVM, Ph.D. (Secondary trainer)
Professor Emeritus Comparative Biosciences
- Developmental plasticity in the carotid body

Chiara Cirelli, M.D., Ph.D. (Secondary trainer)
-The function of sleep and the functional consequences of sleep loss

Jerome Dempsey, Ph.D. (Primary trainer)
Professor - Population Health Sciences
- Cardiorespiratory regulation in humans

Marlowe Eldridge, M.D. (Primary trainer)
Director - Diving Physiology Laboratory, University of Wisconsin, Madison WI
Associate Professor (with Tenure) - Pediatrics, Kinesiology and Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison WI.
- Cardiopulmonary responses to hypoxia in humans

Nizar Jarjour, M.D. (Primary trainer)
Assistant Professor - Medicine
- Airway smooth muscle control in humans

Stephen Johnson, MD, Ph.D. (Primary trainer)
Assistant Professor - Comparative Biosciences
- Respiratory rhythm generation and plasticity

Barbara Morgan, P.T., Ph.D.(Primary trainer)
Associate Professor - Orthopedics and Rehabilitation
- Cardiorespiratory responses to hypoxia and exercise

Curtis Smith, Ph.D. (Secondary trainer)
Senior Scientist - Population Health Sciences
- Ventilatory control during sleep

John Svaren, Ph.D. (Primary trainer)
Assistant Professor - Comparative Biosciences
- Transcriptional regulation by hypoxia

Giulio Tononi, M.D., Ph.D. (Secondary Trainer)
-Consciousness and its disorders, mechanisms and functions of sleep

Jyoti Watters, Ph.D. (Primary Trainer)
Assistant Professor - Comparative Biosciences
- Cell signaling in hypoxia and hypoxia--induced gene expression

 

Additional Faculty Assisting in Training

A number or key faculty and academic staff at the University of Wisconsin are collaborators and co-investigators with program trainers. They play a very significant role, enriching the intellectual environment as well as scientific expertise available to our trainees. These are but a few examples.

Steve Barczi, M.D. (Associate Professor of Medicine). Dr. Barczi is working with Dr. Dempsey to sustain research efforts formerly supervised by J. Skatrud concerning sleep disordered breathing; he oversees the IRB protocols pertaining to this research.

Mark Brownfield, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Comparative Biosciences). Dr. Brownfield investigates serotonergic mechanisms of blood pressure regulation. He contributes expertise in the development of novel serotonin related antibodies, and has been invaluable in helping trainees to debug or to interpret immunohistochemical data. Recent collaborations indlude: Bisgard, Behan and Mitchell.

Naomi Chesler, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering). Dr. Chesler is interested in bioengineering applications to the pulmonary circulation. She collaborates with Dr. Eldridge.

Nadine Connor, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Division of Otolaryngology). Dr. Conner is a collaborator of Dr. Behan’s, and investigates tongue muscle plasticity after repetitive activity.

Burt Olson, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine). Dr. Olson collaborates extensively with Mitchell and Bisgard in studies on developmental plasticity in ventilatory control, and with Behan, Morgan and multiple others in exposing rats to intermittent or sustained hypoxia. He is also expert at barometric plethysmography and has helped train many pre- and postdoctoral fellows to make ventilatory measurements in unanesthetized rodents. He is a Co-investigator on multiple grants with Bisgard, Behan, Morgan and Mitchell.

Dan Resnick, M.D. (Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery). Dr. Resnick is expert in rodent models of spinal cord injury and has shared his equipment and expertise with multiple trainees.

Avtar Roopra , Ph.D. (Assistant Professor of Neurology). Dr. Roopra is expert in epigenetics and is currently collaborating with Mitchell concerning the impact of the NRSF/CtBP co-repressors of histone methylation state. It is hypothesized that this mechanism of gene regulation effectively couples glycolytic flux with BDNF (and other neuronal) gene expression.

DanDan Sun, Ph.D. (Professor of Neurosurgery). Dr. Sun has considerable expertise concerning hypoxia and/or reoxygenation and their impact on channel function. She has been a valuable consultant, particularly to trainees using cell culture models of hypoxia and/or anoxia.

Clive Svendsen, Ph.D. (Professor of Anatomy, Neurology, Waisman Center). Dr. Svendsen is expert in the biology of neural progenitor cells, and genetically modifies them to produce and secrete selected trophic factors. He and Dr. Mitchell are working to develop the rat model of ALS (over-expressing mutated SOD-1) for investigations of its respiratory impairment, compensatory plasticity and functional recovery following the implantation of trophic factor secreting progenitor cells.

Steven Weber, Ph.D. (Associate Professor, Neurology and Medicine, Director Clinical Sleep Laboratory). Dr. Weber is a sleep disorders specialist with many years of experience. All fellows who will conduct their research in sleep apnea, learn the intricacies of sleep staging via EEG interpretation from Dr. Weber.

Justin Williams , Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering). Dr. Williams collaborates with Dr. Johnson, helping to develop important technical approaches such as multiple electrode arrays (including analysis) and the utilization of microfluidics to harness selective drug applications in vitro.

Ailing Xie, M.D., Ph.D. (Senior Scientist, Department of Medicine). Dr. Xie is expert in sleep disordered breathing in human subjects and is a major part of many studies focused on this topic. She has interacted extensively with Drs. Skatrud and Dempsey over the years.

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