​Dr Gordon S. Mitchell

Preeminence Professor of Neuroscience and Physical Therapy, Director of Breathing Research and Therapeutics Center and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, USA

Gordon Mitchell received his PhD in Developmental and Cell Biology from the University of California at Irvine, followed by postdoctoral work at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen, Germany, where he worked with Dr. Peter Scheid. He then moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he became a faculty member, after 1 year as a postdoc with Dr. Jerome Dempsey. 

After becoming a full professor in 1992, he served as department Chair for 17 years before leaving to join the University of Florida as a Preeminence Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Physical Therapy and the McKnight Brain Institute. There he founded the Breathing Research and Therapeutics Center (BREATHE) and an NIH funded Training Program of the same name. Dr. Mitchell has received numerous research awards, including a MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health, is a Fellow of the American Physiological Society and was the UW Steenbock Professor in Behavioral and Neural Science. He has delivered multiple award lectures, including the Society for Neuroscience Special Lecturer, Julius H. Comroe Distinguished Lecturer (APS), and Guyton Distinguished Lectureship (ACDP). His research concerns (cellular & network) mechanisms of plasticity in the respiratory control system, and application of those principles to both respiratory and non-respiratory motor systems. A major research emphasis concerns acute intermittent hypoxia-induced spinal/phrenic motor plasticity, and translation of fundamental discoveries into novel therapeutic strategies for humans living with chronic spinal cord injury, ALS and other clinical disorders that compromise movement.