Tesar joined the faculty at CWRU in 2010 and is currently the Dr. Donald and Ruth Weber Goodman Professor of Innovative Therapeutics at CWRU School of Medicine. His laboratory has pioneered new regenerative approaches to treat myelin disorders of the central nervous system, including multiple sclerosis, neuromyelitis optica, pediatric leukodystrophies, cerebral palsy and brain cancer.
Emmanuel Mignot is the Craig Reynolds Professor of Sleep Medicine at Stanford University. He discovered that human narcolepsy is caused by an autoimmune loss of approximately 20,000 hypothalamic neurons secreting the wake-promoting peptide hypocretin (also known as orexin). He also identified HLA-DQB1*06:02 and T-cell receptor genes as major susceptibility genes, which act together to promote a selective autoimmune process triggered by influenza A. Mignot has received numerous awards and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
Catharine Rankin completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology at the University of Guelph, and a doctorate in biopsychology at the City University of New York. Following her graduate work, she did postdoctoral research focused on the development of learning in the marine mollusk Aplysia with Thomas Carew at Yale University before joining the faculty of the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, where she is currently a full professor.
Peng Zhang is an assistant professorCase Western Reserve University. He studies the role of HS 3-O-sulfation in neurexin-ligand binding and its effect on synaptic function in autism mouse models.
Evan Feinberg is an assistant professor in the Department of Anatomy and a member of the Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience and the Center for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco.
He received his undergraduate degree in biochemical sciences at Harvard University, where he worked with Craig Hunter on the molecular mechanisms underlying systemic spread of RNA interference in C. elegans. His doctoral studies were conducted at The Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Cori Bargmann, where he developed GRASP (GFP Reconstitution Across Synaptic Partners), a method that enables in vivo visualization of synapses between defined neurons.
Feinberg pursued postdoctoral training at Harvard University with Markus Meister, where he performed the first two-photon calcium imaging study of the superior colliculus and discovered its columnar functional architecture. The Feinberg lab studies sensorimotor integration using optical, genetic and behavioral methods in mice and has received research support from the E.M. Ziegler, Brain & Behavior Research and the Whitehall Foundation in addition to receiving a Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Award.
Yann Herault is a neurobiologist studying the pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental disorders at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).
Paul Wang joined Clinical Research Associates (CRA) and the Simons Foundation in 2016. He helps to oversee portions of SFARI's clinical research portfolio, and CRA's work with the experimental drug arbaclofen.
Tammi Fumberi joined the Simons Foundation in 2015, bringing with her extensive experience in healthcare administration and event management. Previously, Fumberi worked as an administrative assistant at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, coordinating the operations and personnel for the hospital’s Language and International Services program. Prior to that, she served for seven years as an operations associate in the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Karen Walton-Bowen joined Clinical Research Associates in 2014 to oversee clinical operations, biostatistical analysis and reporting, and the arbaclofen program. Walton-Bowen is an expert in clinical development across multiple therapeutic areas within the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, including gastrointestinal, neuroscience, respiratory, cardiovascular, lysosomal storage disorders, inflammation and pain control.
Ann Marie Craig is professor of psychiatry and Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology at the University of British Columbia and is a member of the Royal Society of Canada. She began her studies on synapses as a postdoctoral fellow with Gary Banker and held previous faculty positions at the University of Illinois and at Washington University in St. Louis.