Dr. Dorothy Schafer has been announced as endowed chair

Dorothy Schafer, PhD, associate professor of neurobiology, is the inaugural holder of the UMass Chan Medical School Chair in Biomedical Research I. Dr. Schafer’s lab aims to understand how the immune and nervous systems interact to regulate the development and function of the nervous system in health and disease. Dr. Schafer made the first fundamental discovery that a resident immune cell of the brain, called microglia, is critical to shape developing brain circuits by removing excess neuronal synapses. More recently, her research team is investigating inflammatory signaling within brain circuits during neurodegenerative disease. After earning her doctoral degree at the University of Connecticut Health Center, Dr. Schafer completed postdoctoral training at Boston Children’s Hospital. She was awarded the 2017 Young Investigator Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and the prestigious 2024 UPenn Mahoney Institute Rising Star Award.