Afonso Silva, Ph.D.

Dr. Silva received his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, and his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where he worked on non-invasive MRI measurements of cerebral blood flow using the arterial spin labeling technique. He then went on to do post-doctoral training in the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research at the University of Minnesota, where he studied the temporal and spatial characteristics of functional brain hemodynamics under the supervision of Prof. Seong-Gi Kim. Dr. Silva joined NINDS as a Staff Scientist in 1999, and became a tenure-track investigator in 2004. Dr. Silva obtained tenure in 2012. His laboratory combines modern neuroimaging techniques (functional MRI, and optical imaging) with electrophysiological recordings aimed at understanding the mechanisms of regulation of cerebral blood flow during normal and stimulation-induced brain activity. In 2018, Dr. Silva was invited by the Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Arthur Levine, and by the Chair of the Department of Neurobiology, Prof. Peter Strick, to occupy an Endowed Chair Full Professor of Neurobiology position at the University of Pittsburgh. This invitation stemmed largely from Dr. Silva’s expertise in establishing the marmoset as an attractive animal model in neuroscience research.