Genis Prat Ortega, PhD, joined the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery as an assistant professor in October of 2025. He completed his PhD in Computational Neuroscience at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2019. His doctorate work focused on understanding the neural mechanisms underlying perceptual decision making. After completing his PhD, he joined the group of Dr. Capogrosso at the University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery. As a postdoctoral researcher, he worked in a first-in-human Spinal Cord Stimulation clinical trial for people living with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a project that received a Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Award 2025.
Specialized Areas of Interest
Professional Organization Membership
Education & Training
- BA, Physics Universidad de Granada, 2013
- MS, Modelling for Science and Engineering, 2014
- PhD, Computational Neuroscience, 2019
- Post-doctoral Fellow, University of Pittsburgh Department of Neurological Surgery, 2025
Honors & Awards
- EMBO Travel Grant, 2016
- CNBC Strick Award for Outstanding Postdoctoral Paper, 2025
- Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Awards, 2025
Research Activities
Dr. Prat-Ortega is interested in understanding how we can use neurotechnologies to help patients with neurological disorders to recover motor and cognitive function. In particular, his group is studying how to expand neurostimulation techniques to the pediatric population. His main project is to the develop a new neurostimulation technique to treat spasticity and improve motor control for children with Cerebral Palsy. To this end, his group integrates biophysical modeling and human electrophysiological experiments with clinical trials to elucidate the mechanisms underlying motor and cognitive dysfunction in neurological conditions, and to determine how neurostimulation can effectively alleviate these deficits.