Michelle Chan-Cortés
Michelle (Harran) Chan-Cortés joined BLAM Lab in October 2010 as a research assistant. Subsequently promoted to senior research coordinator, she stayed until August 2012.
Michelle graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. During this time, she worked in numerous labs at Johns Hopkins, the National Institutes of Health, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Although her undergraduate was predominantly biomedical-device centered, in Dr. Reza Shadmehr’s lab, Michelle focused on motor learning in the cerebellum, specifically in patients with spino-cerebellar ataxia.
After joining BLAM Lab, her focus shifted to how stroke affects motor learning and what can be done to increase the efficiency of neurorehabilitation. Michelle helped setting up SMARTS1 and worked with different modalities to probe the neural mechanisms of recovery after stroke, including: structural and functional MRI, TMS, kinematics, and clinical assessments.
From 2012 to 2016, she then moved to Columbia University in NYC where she helped to set up SMARTS2, and aided in studies of transfer of skill. In 2016, she moved back to Baltimore, and joined Dr. David Linden’s laboratory at Johns Hopkins. Here, she investigated cortico-neuronal regrowth after injury in a mouse model.
In 2018, Michelle started a PhD in the Johns Hopkins Department of Neuroscience under Dr. Charlotte Sumner where she studies the basic mechanisms of spinal muscular atrophy and peripheral nerve regeneration.