Dr. Erica Dale, BREATHE Steering Committee member and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Aging, was elected as the 2024 UF College of Medicine Rising Star Researcher Award in Basic or Translational Sciences. As one of the only researchers in the world looking at strengthening connections from the brain stem to neurons in the cervical spinal cord, Dr. Dale aims to help people with spinal cord injuries restore breathing functions after those connections have become damaged or weakened. Through her collaborations with UF engineers, she combines their expertise in materials science and electrode design with her expertise on neuron function to yield promising results in the restoration of breathing. Upon receiving this award, Dr. Dale notes that it is not because she is “amazing or did anything incredibly impressive but just that [she] didn’t give up.” Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition!
If you find something that you’re passionate about, interested in, you don’t take the “nos” to heart. You just keep going. It’s this sense of being antifragile, going through a storm and becoming stronger on the way out.
Erica Dale, PhD