CIDRI-Africa welcomes neuroscientist Associate Professor Joseph Raimondo

CIDRI-Africa welcomed Associate Professor Joseph Raimondo to the ranks of Contributing Investigators in the first quarter of 2022. Joe is an Associate Professor in the Division of Cell Biology in the Department of Human Biology and the Neuroscience Institute as well as being an Associate Member of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine at the University of Cape Town.

Joe is a is a neuroscientist who investigates brain function and dysfunction using electrophysiological, optical imaging and computational approaches. He has a specific interest in the pathophysiology of epilepsy. In addition to his research, Joe lectures MBChB, BMedSci (Hons) and BSc students, and convenes the BMedSci (Hons) Neuroscience and Physiology course. He is committed to development of young research talent and has contributed to the organisation of training schools such as the IBRO-SIMONS Computational Neuroscience Imbizo, the TReND Open Labware School, and the IBRO-UCT African Advanced School on Techniques in Neuroscience.

He was awarded a Wellcome Trust International Intermediate Fellowship for 2022-2026, on the subject of human cell-type specific ion dynamics in neuroinflammation and seizures. He has also held grants from the United States National Institutes of Health, the Royal Society, the South African Medical Research Council, and the National Research Foundation.

Joe holds a DPhil and MSc in Neuroscience from the University of Oxford (supported by a Rhodes Scholarship) and an MBChB from UCT. He is a Y-rated National Research Foundation researcher and received the Claude Leon Merit Award in 2017. When he’s not in the laboratory, you might find him running on Table Mountain or hunting for crayfish off the Cape peninsula.