Ibolja Cernak, MD, PhD, MEng, MHS

Ibolja Cernak, MD, PhD, MEng, MHS, serves as a Professor of Neuroscience and Physiology at Alice L. Walton School of Medicine. In this role, she delivers the School’s Neuroscience curriculum and contributes to the teaching of the Physiology discipline.

Prior to joining the School, Dr. Cernak was Founding Professor of Physiology at the Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. In her 25+ years of teaching and mentoring students, she has also served as Founding Professor of Pathophysiology & Neuroscience in the Columbus Campus of the Mercer University School of Medicine and as Professor & Chair of the Canadian Military and Veterans Clinical Rehabilitation Research at the University of Alberta. Additionally, she has held faculty positions at Johns Hopkins University, Georgetown University, James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade, Serbia.

Dr. Cernak received her MD and master’s in biomedical engineering from the University of Belgrade School of Medicine, where she went on to complete a residency in pathological and clinical physiology and earn her PhD in pathophysiology and neuroscience. She also completed a master’s degree in homeland security at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine.

Dr. Cernak has over 35 years of clinical and experimental research expertise in the long-term consequences of military injuries, blast-induced neurotrauma, traumatic brain injury, chronic stress, and related subjects. She has contributed more than 200 research articles in international journals, presented at over 350 professional meetings, and is Associate Editor of the international journal Frontiers in Neurology. She has produced three patents.

Dr. Cernak is a member of the International Association of Medical Science Educators and the National Neurotrauma Society. She has served as a member of several professional bodies including the Subject Committees of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and NATO Task Groups on Blast and Traumatic Brain Injuries.