Sonia Villapol graduated from the University of Santiago of Compostela, Spain (2003), with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. She received her master's degree and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain (2007). She worked as a postdoctoral fellow at CNRS at University Pierre and Marie Curie VI and at INSERM in Paris, France (2007-2010), and at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine at Uniformed Services University (USUHS) in Bethesda, MD (2010-2014). Following her postdoctoral research work, she joined the Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown University (Washington, D.C.) as a Research Assistant Professor in May 2014. In July 2018, she started as an Assistant Professor at the Center for Neuroregeneration at the Houston Methodist Research Institute. She has received extramural research funding as a Principal Investigator from NIH. Her research interests have been mainly focused on elucidating the mechanisms of neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, or neurogenesis via several models of brain injury (traumatic brain injury or cerebral ischemia) and neurodegeneration, such as Alzheimer's disease.
Aviva J. Symes currently works as a Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA. She received her post-doctoral training at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston. Her Ph.D. was awarded by University College London, UK, in Biochemistry, and her B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry is from the University of Manchester, UK. Her research interests include elucidating mechanisms and developing therapeutics for traumatic brain injury, using both animal models and 3D in vitro culture models.
