Viviana Gradinaru, PhD
California Institute of Technology
Viviana Gradinaru, PhD, (Stanford PhD, Caltech BS) is the Troendle Professor of Neuroscience and Biological Engineering at Caltech and the Davis Leadership Chair of the Merkin Institute for Translational Research. In 2024, she was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and a Carnegie Great Immigrants Awardee.
Prof. Gradinaru studies brain-body interactions in neurodegeneration. Her laboratory develops technologies to observe and perturb cells—such as optogenetics and tissue clearing—and to deliver genes to the brain via the bloodstream rather than surgery.
She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2022) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2021). Her honors include the NIH Director’s Pioneer and Innovator Awards, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and young investigator awards from the Society for Neuroscience, the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and the Vilcek Foundation.