Institute for Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Society Executive Director Search
Finalist Three – Michelle LaPlaca
Michelle C. LaPlaca, Ph.D. is a Professor and Associate Chair for Faculty Development in the Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and a Research Biomedical Engineer at the Atlanta VA Medical Center. She holds the Peterson Professorship in Pediatric Research and is director of the Translational Neurotrauma Laboratory. Dr. LaPlaca also co-leads the Georgia Tech – Shepherd Center Research Collaborative.
Dr. LaPlaca’s research interests are in traumatic brain injury (TBI) with specific emphasis on better understanding TBI heterogeneity and improving preclinical to clinical translation. The lab focuses on lipid dysregulation in the injury response, identifies novel TBI biomarkers, and examines the role of glymphatic system in brain fluid homeostasis and biomarker efflux. She has also developed a virtual reality multimodal assessment tool for children and adults to measure neurological function associated with concussion. She is a co-core director in the Veterans Affairs (VA) interagency center PRECISE-TBI (PRE Clinical Interagency reSearch resourcE-TBI), which develops common data elements and end-to-end informatic tools to improve rigor, reproducibility, and transparency for preclinical neurotrauma research.
Her Ph.D. is in Bioengineering, with postdoctoral training in Neurosurgery, both at the University of Pennsylvania, after which Dr. LaPlaca joined BME in 1998. She has testified before the U.S. Senate on Veterans Affairs on TBI and served as President and Program Chair of the National Neurotrauma Society. Dr. LaPlaca is an elected Fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Neurotrauma. Dr. LaPlaca has over 90 refereed publications, three patents, and has been funded from the National Institutes of Health, US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command.
Vision Talk
Date: June 9th, 2025
Time: 11a.m. - Noon
Location: Callaway Manufacturing Research Building (GT Manufacturing Institute)
813 Ferst Drive NW, Atlanta, GA 30332, seminar room 114
Please register in advance for this meeting using the link below. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
