PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR, SUTHANA LAB
Nanthia Suthana, PhD
Carol Gram Deane Presidential Distinguished Professor in Neurosurgery
Professor in Neurosurgery, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurobiology
Nanthia Suthana, PhD, is a Professor of Neurosurgery and Biomedical Engineering at Duke University.
Her research combines intracranial recordings, wearable sensors, and augmented/virtual reality to study the neural dynamics of memory, navigation, and emotion in freely moving humans. Her lab includes members with diverse backgrounds in neuroscience, biomedical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, psychology, gaming, art, computer science, and has ongoing collaborations to develop wearables a miniaturized wireless brain implants for treatment of psychiatric and neurological disorders.
Dr. Suthana’s work has been published in Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, and Neuron, and her research program has been awarded several NIH Brain Initiative grants including 2 U01 and 2 R01 awards, a McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award, and a Keck Junior Faculty Award. Before joining Duke in 2025, Dr. Suthana was Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Neurosurgery, Bioengineering, and Psychology at UCLA, where she completed her graduate training in the Neuroscience PhD program and postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Suthana is committed to mentorship and to increasing diversity and career opportunities for women and underrepresented groups in neuroscience, and received a postdoctoral mentoring award in 2019.
Education
PhD (Neuroscience), UCLA
2009
BS Honors (Neuroscience), UCLA
2005
Profesisonal Experience
Present Positions
Professor (tenured), Depts. of Neurosurgery, Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
2025 - Present
Previous Positions
Associate Professor-in-Residence, Dept. of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Dept. Neurosurgery / Psychology / Bioengineering, UCLA
2021 - 2025
Associate Director, Neuromodulation Division, Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA
2015 - 2025
Associate Director for Neuroscience Outreach, Brain Research Institute, UCLA
2016 - 2025
Assistant Professor-in-Residence, Dept. of Psychiatry & Biobehavioral Sciences, Dept. Neurosurgery / Psychology / Bioengineering, UCLA
2015 - 2021
Assistant Researcher, Department of Neurosurgery, UCLA
2013 - 2015
Lecturer, Department of Psychology, UCLA
2013 - 2014
Postdoctoral Scholar, Dept. of Neurosurgery, PI: Itzhak Fried, UCLA
2009 - 2012
Graduate Student Researcher, Neuroscience Interdepartmental Ph.D. Program, PIs: Susan Bookheimer and Barbara Knowlton, UCLA
2005 - 2009
Honors and Special Awards
UCLA DGSOM W. M. Keck Foundation Junior Faculty Award
2020
UCLA Postdoctoral Scholar Mentoring Award
2019
McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award
2019
European Journal of Neuroscience Young Investigator Award Lecture, Neuromodulation Symposium, Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience
2019
Ruth and Raymond Stotter Term Chair, Department of Neurosurgery, UCLA
2016
Excellence in Translational Research Award, Department of Neurosurgery, UCLA
2015
Joseph Drown Friends Scholar Award, Friends of the Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, UCLA
2015
Service
Executive Committee, Department of Psychiatry, Member, UCLA
2023 - 2024
Internal Advisory Committee, Neuroscience Pathways Program, UCLA-HBCU (HBCU - Historically Black Colleges and Universities)
2020 - 2024
Postdoctoral Scholars Advisory Council, Graduate Division, Member, UCLA
2016 - 2024
Brain Research Institute Steering Committee, Member, UCLA
2015 - 2024
Admissions Committee, MSTP Program, Member, UCLA
2020
Faculty Search Committee, Neuroscience Theme, Member, UCLA
2019
Admissions Committee, Neuroscience Ph.D. Program, Chair, UCLA
2017
Admissions Committee, Neuroscience PhD Program, Member, UCLA
2015
Ad Hoc Reviewer, Brain, Brain Stimulation, Cell, Current Biology, eLife, J Neurosci, Hippocampus, IEEE Des. Test, JAMA, NEJM, Nature, Nat Commun, Nature Human Behavior, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, Neuroimage, PNAS, Science Advances, TICS
2014 - Present
Research Grants and Fellowships Received
Current Grants
SFI-AN-NC-SCN-00007276-18, Simons Foundation Simons Collaboration on Ecological NEuroscience (SCENE)
2025 - 2030
NIH R61 MH135106, NIMH, Synchronized neuronal and peripheral biomarker recordings in freely moving humans
2024 - 2029
NIH R61 MH135109, NIMH, Capturing Autobiographical memory formation in People moving Through real-world spaces
2024 - 2029
NIH UO1 NS121472, NINDS Mapping Algorithmic State Space in the Human Brain
2021 - 2026
NIH UH3 NS107673, NINDS, Responsive Neurostimulation for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
2019 - 2026
Completed Grants
NIH RO1 MH124761, NIMH, Intracranial neurophysiological signatures of fear and anxiety in humans
2021 - 2026
NIH T32 TNS115753, NINDS, Training in Neurotechnology Translation
2020 - 2025
NIH UO1 NS117838, NINDS, Neurostimulation and Recording of Real World Spatial Navigation in Humans
2020 - 2025
NIH RO1 AG068317, NIA, Network-targeted theta-burst stimulation for episodic memory improvement in MCI
2020 - 2025
Zenith Award, ZEN-20-643042, Alzheimer’s Association, Modulation of Hippocampal Circuitry with Focused Ultrasound in MCI
2020 - 2022
UCLA DGSOM W. M. Keck Foundation Junior Faculty Award, Deep Brain Recording and Stimulation of Human Experiences in the Wild
2020 - 2022
McKnight Foundation Technological Innovations in Neuroscience, Wireless and Programmable Recording and Stimulation of Deep Brain Activity in Freely Moving Humans Immersed in Virtual (or Augmented) Reality
2019 - 2022
NIH UO1 NS103802-Supplement, NINDS, Data sharing
2018 - 2019
NIH RO1 NS084017, NINDS, Mechanisms of Memory Enhancement by Deep Brain Stimulation in Humans
2018 - 2023
NIH UO1 NS103802, NINDS, Neurostimulation and Recording of Real World Spatial Navigation in Humans
2017 - 2020
Joseph Drown Friends Scholar Award, Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior, UCLA
2015 - 2017
Selected Seminars and Presentations
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
September 2025
Cosyne, Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada
March 2025
Georgia Tech, Atlanta, Georgia
May 2025
DARPA, Arlington, Virginia
May 2025
Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts
February 2025
Pavlov Society Meeting, Indianapolis, Indiana
September 2024
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts
August 2024
NYC Neuromodulation Conference, New York, New York
August 2024
FENS Forum, Vienna, Austria
June 2024
McKnight Neuroscience Conference, Aspen, Colorado
June 2024
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
February 2024
Rice University, Houston, Texas
November 2023
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
November 2023
Memory Disorders Research Society, Los Angeles, California
September 2023
Brain Initiative Investigator’s Meeting, Washington D.C.
June 2023
Spring Hippocampal Research Conference, Verona, Italy
June 2023
Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, Trondheim, Norway
March 2023
Neural Engineering Training Program, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
April 2023
Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting, San Francisco, California
March 2023
Winter School on Brains & Computations, University of California, San Diego
December 2022
Stanford Psychiatry Grand Rounds, Wu Tsai Neuroscience Seminar, Stanford University
April 2022
Brain Behavior Quantification and Synchronization Workshop, NIH, Virtual Meeting
March 2022
Brain Meeting, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, UCL, Virtual Meeting
October 2021
Neuroengineering Seminar Series, University of Minnesota, Virtual Meeting
March 2021
Human Single-unit Meeting, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California
November 2020
Frontiers in Neuropsychiatry Seminars, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
October 2020
Winter Conference in Neural Plasticity, St. Kitts, St. Kitts and Nevis, Caribbean
February 2020
North American Neuromodulation Society Meeting, Las Vegas, Nevada
January 2020
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
November 2019
Neuromodulation Symposium, Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience, Rochester, New York
October 2019
Memory Disorders Research Society Meeting, New York
October 2019
Deep Brain Stimulation Think Tank, Orlando, Florida
September 2019
Spring Hippocampus Research Conference, Taormina, Sicily, Italy
June 2019
World Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery, New York
June 2019
Neural Prosthesis Seminar Series, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
November 2018
Psychiatry Grand Rounds, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire
October 2018
iNAV Symposium, Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada
June 2018
Cognitive Neuroscience Society Annual Meeting, Boston, Massachusetts
March 2018
International Conference on Memory, Budapest, Hungary
July 2016
UT Austin Conference on Learning & Memory, Session chair & speaker, Austin, Texas
April 2017
Winter Conference in Neural Plasticity, Maui, Hawaii
February 2016
Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ
January 2015
Teaching Experience
Introduction to Signal Processing for Neuroscientists (Neuroscience 260), Graduate Students, Co-faculty: Sotiris Masmanidis and Daniel Aharoni
Winter 2019-24
Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (Neuroscience 101C), Undergraduate
Spring 2021-23
Competitive Edge Course for URM STEM Graduate Students (Topic: Presentation skills)
Summer 2013-23
Human Single Neuron and Oscillatory Mechanisms of Cognition (Psychology 207b), Graduate Students
Winter 2017
Medical Neurosciences, David Geffen School of Medicine, Medical Students, Lead-faculty: James Bisley
Spring 2015
Behavioral Neuroscience (Psychology 115), Undergraduate
Summer 2015
Cognitive Neuroscience (Psychology 119C), Undergraduate
Fall 2012, Summer 2013-14
Introduction to Psychobiology (Psychology 15), Undergraduate
Spring 2013
Introduction to Psychology (Psychology 10), Undergraduate
Spring 2013
Physiological Psychology of Learning (Psychology 119M), Undergraduate
Spring 2013
Behavioral Neuroscience Laboratory (Psychology 116), Undergraduate, Co-faculty: William Grisham
Summer 2012, Fall 2013
