Lead Faculty

Brian Litt photo
Brian Litt, MD

Brian Litt, MD

Center Director
Department: Neurology & Bioengineering

Research Interest: Brian Litt's lab focuses on applying new engineering technology to map and modulate functional networks in brain in order to understand and treat human disease. As PI and co-Investigator on government, institutional, and privately funded grants, Dr. Litt engages and innovates in the areas of hardware design, machine learning, cloud-based informatics/ signal processing and brain-computer interfaces. Clinical translation is an important goal of Dr. Litt's work, in addition to mentoring clinicians and scientists across fields. His collaborative group is composed of clinical and basic scientists and engineers, whose activities been enhanced by the creation of the Penn Center for Neuroengineering and Therapeutics where he serves as director. Brian Litt's lab emphasizes training in research, hosting 15 doctoral candidates and 10 post-doctoral researchers, including 7 residents and fellows, during the past five years.

E-mail: littb@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Website

Kathryn Davis photo
Kathryn Davis, MD

Kathryn Davis, MD

Associate Professor
Department: Neurology

Research Interest: Dr. Davis’ research centers around utilizing both the advancing fields of invasive neurophysiology and neuroimaging to better localize epileptic networks in medication refractory epilepsy patients. She hopes that improving localization will enable epileptologists to better localize epileptic networks and assign individual patients to the most efficacious therapy, for example, seizure control devices, resective surgery, or continued medical management.

E-mail: Kathryn.Davis@uphs.upenn.edu
Website

Flavia Vitale photo
Flavia Vitale, PHD

Flavia Vitale, PhD

Assistant Professor, Smit Scholar
Department: Neurology

Research Interest: Neuroengineering: bridging chemical engineering, materials science and neuroscience; fabricating implants of new materials

E-mail: vitalef@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Website

Joost Wagenaar photo
Joost Wagenaar, PHD

Joost Wagenaar, PhD

Director, Informatics
Department: Neurology

Research Interest:  Novel techniques to acquire, process, and analyze neural data; cloud computing to manage large datasets.

E-mail: joostw@seas.upenn.edu
Website

Erin Conrad, MD

Erin Conrad, MD

Assistant Professor
Department: Neurology

Research Interest: Dr. Conrad's research focuses on using quantitative EEG analysis to improve our understanding and treatment of epilepsy, spanning early diagnosis and classification to improved surgical treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy

E-mail: Erin.Conrad2@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Website

Joel Stein, MD, PhD

Joel Stein, MD, PhD

Assistant Professor
Department: Radiology

Research Interest: Dr. Stein is a neuroradiologist with clinical and research expertise in epilepsy imaging. He is interested in hippocampal imaging, functional imaging, intracranial electrode localization and visualization, machine learning, and portable low field MRI.

E-mail: Joel.Stein@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Website

Colin Ellis, MD

 

Colin Ellis, MD

Assistant Professor
Department: Neurology

Research Interest: Dr. Ellis's research is focused on the genetic basis of epilepsy. He is particularly interested in the discovery of genes that cause epilepsy; the heritability of epilepsy within families; and the use of genetics to improve the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy. An additional focus is data mining and natural language processing on electronic health records to improve research and clinical care in epilepsy. 

E-mail: Colin.Ellis2@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Website

James Gugger, Jr., MD, PhD

James Gugger, Jr., MD, PharmD

Assistant Professor
Department: Neurology

Research Interest: Dr. Gugger’s research focusses on the use of noninvasive tools such as quantitative neuroimaging to characterize the process of epileptogenesis and seizures after brain injury.

E-mail: James.Gugger@pennmedicine.upenn.edu
Website