Jefferson College of Health Sciences - Commencement Information

Michael Friedlander is the founding Executive Director of the Virginia Tech Carilion (VTC) Research Institute and the Senior Dean for Research at VTC School of Medicine where he is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. He also serves as the Associate Provost for Health Sciences at Virginia Tech where he is Professor of Biological Sciences and of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences. He serves as the Principal Investigator on research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense on the cellular processes that underlie learning in the brain in health, during development and after traumatic brain injury. Dr. Friedlander previously served as the Wilhelmina Robertson endowed Professor of Neuroscience, Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Director of Neuroscience Initiatives at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Prior to that, he was Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine where he also served as the Founding Director of the Neurobiology Research Center, Director of the Mental Retardation Research Center, Director of the Civitan International Research Center and the first Evelyn McKnight endowed Professor of Learning and Memory in Aging.

Dr. Friedlander received his B.S. from Florida State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in Physiology and Biophysics. He did postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia School of Medicine in Charlottesville and at SUNY Stony Brook in Neuroscience. Dr. Friedlander is the founding president of the Association of Medical School Neuroscience Department Chairs (AMSNDC). He has served as Chair of the Council of Academic Societies of the Association of American Medical Schools (AAMC), on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) - AAMC joint task force on the Scientific Foundations of Future Physicians, on the AAMC National Research Advisory Panel and the MR5 MCAT Comprehensive Review Panel and in 2012, he was selected as a AAMC Distinguished Service Member. He has served on the scientific advisory boards of the Civitan International Research Center for Intellectual Disabilities, the Mission Connect Foundation for Research in Spinal Cord Injury and Traumatic Brain Injury, the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC, the University of Wisconsin Waisman Mental Retardation Research Center, and on the Michael E. DeBakey Veteran’s Administration Medical Center Clinical Neurosciences Steering Committee as well as the Chair of the National Association of Mental Retardation Research Centers. He is the President of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (EBM) and in 2012.

Dr. Friedlander has been a recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in Neuroscience, an NIH Fogarty Center Senior International Research Fellowship, a Lucille Markey Foundation Center Award, a W.M. Keck Foundation Center Award, and the American College of Physicians’ Menninger Award for Mental Health Research and the University of Illinois Distinguished Alumnus Award in Molecular and Integrative Physiology. He is a member of the Dana Foundation Brain Alliance. He has held visiting Professorships at Oxford University, the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University and the University of Paris. In addition, Dr. Friedlander has served on various NIH review panels and as a regular member of the National Science Foundation Developmental Neuroscience Advisory Panel.

Dr. Friedlander is married to Sandra Friedlander and together they have five daughters and five grandchildren.