Dr. Julio Martinez-Trujillo has been appointed to the position of Provincial Endowed Academic Chair in Autism
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Julio Martinez-Trujillo has been appointed to the position of Provincial Endowed Academic Chair in Autism, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University.
The purpose of the Provincial Endowed Academic Chair in Autism is to examine abnormal brain development in autistic children, to understand the cause of the disorder, and to develop more effective treatments and interventions.
The Provincial Endowed Academic Chair in Autism was generated as a part of The Autism Centre of Excellence. Together, the Endowed Chair and Centre of Excellence allow the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and Western University to further develop, consolidate, and enhance its existing capacity to conduct research, teaching and research training in autism studies while ensuring the continued growth and development of community scholars with expertise in autism at Western and across the province of Ontario. Elevating the profile and visibility of autism studies at Western enhances a greater ability to develop national and international collaborations and also helps to attract more researchers and students with expertise and interests in autism.
Dr. Julio Martinez-Trujillo completed his MD at the University of Havana in 1991, and completed his residency training in Clinical Neurophysiology at the Cuban Neuroscience Center. He practised Clinical Medicine from 1993 to 1996 in Bogota Colombia working with children with epilepsy and developmental disorders such as Autism and ADHD. He completed his MSc and PhD at the University of Tübingen in Germany in 1998 and 2000, respectively. His Postdoctoral Fellowship was completed at York University in 2004. In 2004 he became Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair in Visual Neuroscience Tier II, and in 2010 he was promoted to Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology at McGill University.
He has trained more than 14 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, clinical scientists, and has more than 40 publications and book chapters. Dr. Martinez-Trujillo’s research aims to understand the mechanisms of cognition and behaviour in the normal brain and during disease, focusing on how the brain transforms visual signals into coordinated behaviour and how this process is influenced by cognitive functions such as attention and memory. His work on the physiological mechanisms of attention is internationally recognized and has produced more than 1,500 citations.
He holds multiple grants from CIHR, NSERC, and the German Research Council. He has reviewed grants for the Canada Research Chair program, CIHR, NSERC, German research Council (DFG) Hong Kong Research Council, European Science Foundation, National Science Foundation, and National Institutes of Health (USA). He currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Vision Science Society, as well as in other national and international committees at the Society for Neuroscience. Since 2004 he has served in more than 20 PhD thesis committees at McGill University and the Montreal Neurological Institute.
Dr. Martinez-Trujillo is also fluent in English, Spanish, German, and French.
Please join me in congratulating Dr. Martinez-Trujillo on his new appointment.
Dr. Michael J. Strong,
Dean Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry
