Biographical Information

Mark Ellisman

Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder, 1976 in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. In addition to being a Founding Fellow of the American Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Dr. Ellisman has received numerous awards including a Jacob Javits award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Creativity Award from the National Science Foundation. His UCSD teaching and lecturing awards include the Department of Neurosciences Award for Outstanding Teaching in 1987 and 1992, and he was selected by UCSD as the University Lecturer in BioMedicine in 2001. He is also the interdisciplinary coordinator for the National Partnership for Advanced Computing Infrastructure (NPACI) and leads the Neuroscience thrust for the NPACI, which involves integration of brain research and advanced computing and communications technologies.

Research Interests: Development and application of advanced imaging technologies to obtain new information about cell structure and function – particularly in the nervous system. Dr. Ellisman directs the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR), an internationally acclaimed technology development center and research resource established by the NIH. His scientific contributions include work on basic molecular and cellular mechanisms of the nervous system and development of advanced technologies in microscopy and computational biology. He is a pioneer in the development of three dimensional light and electron microscopy and combined application of these image acquisition tools and computational technologies to achieve greater understanding of the structure and function of the nervous system. His group was the first to introduce the idea of "Telemicroscopy" by demonstrating the network-enabled remote use and sharing of a high energy electron microscope in 1992, later developing practical systems now in use by researchers in the US and abroad. In 2001, he began a new role leading for the NIH the development of a Biomedical Informatics Research Network (BIRN) to provide a framework for multiscale imaging infrastructure linking the major neuroimaging centers around the world.