Ramon Velazquez

Ramon Velazquez is an Assistant Professor at the Arizona State University (ASU) School of Life Sciences and a member of the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center. His research focuses on identifying pathogenic mechanisms in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s and Down Syndrome, and developing therapeutic strategies. He is also the director of the Workforce Inclusion in Neuroscience through Undergraduate Research Experience (WINURE) program.

Velazquez holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Cornell University (2014) and completed a postdoc at ASU, funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) fellowships. He has secured grants from NIH and serves on the NIH Chronic Dysfunction and Integrative Neurodegeneration (CDIN) study section. His lab employs mouse models (e.g., Ts65Dn, APP/PS1) and post-mortem human brain tissue to study neurodegenerative processes.

Research interests include environmental factors in neurodegeneration, choline supplementation’s therapeutic potential, and the intersection of Down Syndrome and Alzheimer’s pathology. He has mentored numerous students and collaborates widely, emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches and workforce diversity in neuroscience.

Velazquez has received awards such as the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation Young Investigator Scholar (2017) and has published extensively on topics like glyphosate’s neurotoxic effects, tau pathology, and microglial mechanisms.