Rodnitzky will serve as interim department head while a nation-wide search is conducted to fill the position vacated by Antonio Damasio, M.D., Ph.D., the Maurice Van Allen Professor of Neurology, who is leaving to direct the University of Southern California Institute for the Study of the Brain and Creativity.

Rodnitzky is an expert on movement disorders. He has been instrumental in the study and development of experimental therapies for patients with movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease, and has published numerous scientific articles, book chapters, and reviews on this area of research. He has been a UI faculty member for more than three decades, and during his tenure has served in several leadership positions, including vice chair of neurology since 1986, director of the neurology residency program since 1982 and director of the Division of Movement Disorders since 1988. He served as chief of staff at UI Hospitals and Clinics from 1992 to 1998.

Rodnitzky received a medical degree from the University of Chicago in 1966 and completed an internship in internal medicine at the UI and a residency in neurology at UI Hospitals and Clinics. He joined the UI faculty in 1972 and became a full professor in 1982.

Damasio has been a UI faulty member since 1976 and department head since 1986. In that time, the UI has developed an international reputation for excellence in many areas of neuroscience, ranging from basic research on emotion, cognition, language and memory to clinical studies of neurological diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's disease, and stroke.

For more information:

Department of Neurology

Robert Rodnitzky, M.D.