Vikram S. Chib

Vikram S. Chib is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is also a Research Scientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute and affiliated with the Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute. His research integrates robotics, neuroscience, and economics to study how the brain controls movement and motivational processes, focusing on decision-making, reward valuation, and effort-based choices.

Chib holds a PhD and MS in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University (2007, 2003) and a BS in Bioengineering from the University of Pittsburgh (2001). His postdoctoral training was at the California Institute of Technology.

His work explores how motivational cues drive motor actions, with applications to neurological disorders and incentive design. Key areas include cognitive fatigue mechanisms, dopamine’s role in effort perception, and neural substrates of decision-making. His lab uses functional brain imaging, noninvasive brain stimulation, and behavioral experiments to investigate these topics.

Chib’s research has been featured in high-impact studies on fatigue regulation, schizophrenia-related effort deficits, and the neurobiological basis of social and prosocial behavior. He collaborates across disciplines to translate findings into treatments for neurological impairments and performance optimization strategies.