Innovative Collaborative Research Applied to Problems of Brain Health and Disease
Breadcrumb
2026 CGNI Symposium Speakers
Matthew J. Campen, PhD., MSPH
Matthew J. Campen, PhD, MSPH (Keynote Speaker)
Director, New Mexico Center for Metals in Biology and Medicine,
Regents' Professor, Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences
COP - Pharmaceutical Sciences, CC - Cancer Control and Pop Sci
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center
Dr. Campen received a BS in Biochemistry from Virginia Tech, then his PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He then did a postdoctoral fellowship in pulmonary physiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has authored over 100 peer reviewed publications, largely in the area of the cardiovascular health effects of inhaled pollutants. Matt directs the New Mexico Center for Metals in Biology and Medicine, as well as the KL2 Mentored Career Development Program within the UNM Clinical and Translational Sciences Center. He is also the Deputy Director and Training Core director for the NIEHS P42 UNM Metal Exposure and Toxicity Assessment on Tribal Lands in the Southwest (UNM METALS) Superfund Research Program Center.
Associate Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences
Keck School of Medicine
University of Southern California
Dr. Herting is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences and the Director of the Herting NeuroImaging Laboratory at the University of Southern California. Broadly, her research has focused on brain and cognitive development in healthy and at-risk populations including several ongoing NIH funded studies in children, adolescents, and young adults. Using cognitive-behavioral assessments, neuropsychological testing, semi-structured mental health interviews, and a multi-modal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) approach, she aims to determine which lifestyle and environmental factors, including exposure to air pollutants, influence neurodevelopment, cognition, and mental health outcomes in children and adolescents. Dr. Herting lead multiple multi-disciplinary research projects from NIH and the Health Effects Institute to determine how air pollution influences neurodevelopment, cognition, and risk for psychopathology in children and adolescents [R01 ES032295, R01 ES031074, HEI RFA 18-2].
At a national level, she has been actively involved since 2016 in collaborations that aim to further assess how the environment may affect brain maturation, including co-chair of the Link External Data – Environment Working Group for the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study [U01 DA041048] and Neurodevelopment Working Group for the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program [4UH3 OD023287]. Moreover, Dr. Herting has co-founded the ENIGMA Environment Working Group to elucidate how environmental exposures impact brain structures and networks, neural function and behavior across the lifespan and risk for neurological conditions [R01 ES033961].
Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Neuroscience at the Center for Healthy Minds
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Rosenkranz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and holds the Distinguished Chair in Contemplative Neuroscience at the Center for Healthy Minds. She earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2008 and a Bachelor’s of Science degree, also from UW-Madison, in 1997. Since that time she has worked to develop a mechanistic understanding of how the contents of the mind influence physiological processes in the body and how the activities of the immune system shape how we experience the world. Melissa has amassed multi-disciplinary expertise at the intersections of psychology, neuroscience, immunology, endocrinology, and contemplative studies, leveraging a diverse array of methods from brain imaging to molecular biology. With federal funding from NCCIH and NHLBI, her work has identified both neural and immune signaling pathways that connect airway inflammation in the lungs of individuals with asthma to the psychological experiences of stress and emotion. Extending these relationships across the lifespan with funding from NIA, Dr. Rosenkranz's work also reveals links between chronic systemic inflammation, neuroinflammation, neurodegeneration, and long-term cognitive decline and dementia.
Importantly, Melissa’s work goes beyond basic science. She also examines the mind as a novel treatment target in chronic inflammatory diseases. She has shown, for example, that 8-weeks of training in mindfulness-based stress reduction improved asthma control and reduced airway inflammation in patients with asthma, particularly those with elevated symptoms of depression. She is currently working to expand this work and to accelerate its translation into the clinic.
Dr. Lein is a Professor of Neurotoxicology and Chair of Molecular Biosciences in the School of Veterinary Medicine. She has broad training and experience in molecular and cellular neurobiology, neuropharmacology and neurotoxicology. Her research focuses on defining the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neurotoxicology, including how chemical threat agents and therapeutic agents modulate neuroinflammation and neural function.
Vice Chair and Professor, Department of Neuroscience
Professor, Department of Neurology
University of Rochester Medical Center
When Dr. O’Banion first arrived at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, his research focused on chronic inflammation and viruses. However, over a four-year period, the collaborative research experience he had at the School—coupled with his grandfather’s diagnosis of and rapid decline from dementia— resulted in O’Banion shifting his work to studying inflammation’s effect on the brain.
Neuroinflammation—or inflammation of the central nervous system—can be either helpful or damaging, depending on the length and native of the inflammatory process, and is now acknowledged as a feature of all neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, scientists have been able to link some genetic causes of Alzheimer’s to inflammation, making it an invaluable aspect to study in disease development and progression.
The O'Banion lab is exploring how to modulate the inflammatory response by re-programming the microglia—the cells that mediate inflammation in the brain—to harness the benefit of inflammation, but squelch the toxic effects of these cells and eliminate the spread of disease. For 12 years, O’Banion’s lab has also focused on space radiation exposure for NASA, shedding light on how radiation effects brain function. This cross-cutting research may yield important information about the effect of cancer treatment and its impact on the underlying biology of aging. These findings could help influence an understanding of how Alzheimer’s develops and provide better approaches to research and treatments.
Prof. Thomas Langmann, PhD (Glenn Hatton Lecturer)
Vice-Dean for Critical Infrastructures
Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne
Chair, Laboratory for Experimental Immunology of the Eye
Department of Ophthalmology
University of Cologne
"Microglia in retinal degeneration and pathological angiogenesis"
Prof. Dr. Langmann is a leading ophthalmologist and immunologist at the University of Cologne (Uni Köln) and University Hospital Cologne (UK-Köln), heading the Lab for Experimental Immunology of the Eye. He specializes in retinal diseases such as macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy (DR), focusing on the critical role of the immune system (microglia/macrophages) in these conditions, aiming for new immunomodulatory therapies, and he is the Vice Dean for Critical Infrastructures.
