Robynne Melissa Braun, MD, PhD

While in the MD with Honors in Research program at Loyola Stritch School of Medicine (2007–2011), Dr. Braun collaborated with the Kartje Lab at the Neuroscience Institute, where she developed kinematic methods to evaluate motor recovery with stem cell therapy in a rodent model of stroke. She presented this research at several national and international conferences.

During her final year of medical school and the first year of her residency as an internal medicine intern at Loyola, Dr. Braun published several manuscripts and received the 2010 ERF New Investigator Award from the Foundation for PM&R. During her subsequent residency training at the University of Washington, she continued to develop her research skills. In 2013, she was accepted into the Rehabilitation Medicine Scientist Training Program, a National Institutes of Health-funded career development program for emerging clinician-scientists in rehabilitation medicine. While in this program, she collaborated with the Childers and Mack labs at the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine and initiated a new line of research examining the effects of exercise on gene therapy uptake for inherited myopathies.

After her residency, Dr. Braun was accepted for advanced training at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in the Science of Clinical Investigation Program, where she further refined her knowledge of clinical research design and implementation. This positioned her well for her subsequent appointment as an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at University of Maryland School of Medicine, where her work is focused on clinical care and research in stroke rehabilitation.