Members

Christopher Passaglia

Dr. Passaglia is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering with a primary appointment in the Department of Medical Engineering and secondary appointments in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Molecular Pharmacology & Physiology. He earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Iowa and Syracuse University, respectively. His thesis investigated the neural basis of vision in horseshoe crabs using a realistic cell-based model of the animal’s lateral eyes in combination with single-cell recordings from free-moving crabs in the ocean. His postdoctoral studies examined visual information encoding by ganglion cells in the mammalian retina at Northwestern University via intraocular and optic nerve fiber recordings in vivo. Dr. Passaglia’s research program uses neurophysiological, computational, histological, and behavioral approaches to understand how visual images are represented in the eye’s input to the brain and applies knowledge gain about retinal function under normal and diseased conditions towards engineering novel technologies that can monitor, detect, or treat ocular dysfunctions. His research has been funded by NIH, NSF, and private foundations and has garnered national awards at each stage of his career, including the Capranica Award for Neuroethology, Lindsley Prize from the Society for Neuroscience, Smith Family New Investigator Award, NSF CAREER award, and Thomas R. Lee award from the BrightFocus Foundation.