Helen N. Schwerdt, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research is focused on building and applying new implantable tools to elucidate the multiple dynamic modes of neural signaling that are critical to our everyday behavior, both in health and in disease. A major goal of Dr. Schwerdt’s lab is to delineate the neural signaling operations, molecular and electrical, that control plasticity during learning and how these become impaired in diseases such as Parkinson’s and major mood disorders. 

Dr. Schwerdt received a BS in biomedical engineering (2008) and an MSE in electrical and computer engineering (2009) from Johns Hopkins University and then earned a PhD in electrical engineering from Arizona State University (2014). Dr. Schwerdt worked in the labs of Dr. Junseok Chae for her graduate studies and Dr. Ann Graybiel and Dr. Michael Cima at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for postdoctoral work.