Dr. Scott R. Whittemore awarded University "2020 Distinguished Faculty Award in Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity"

The University-wide Selection Committee has awarded Dr. Scott R. Whittemore UofL’s 2020 Distinguished Faculty Award in Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity in Career Achievement.

Scott Whittemore received his B.S. in Biology from Middlebury College in 1976 and his Ph.D. in Physiology & Biophysics from the University of Vermont in 1981. After postdoctoral fellowships in neurochemistry at the University of California Irvine and molecular biology at Uppsala University (Sweden), he joined the faculty in Neurological Surgery at the University of Miami in 1986 as one of the founding scientists of the newly formed Miami Project to Cure Paralysis. After 12 years at Miami, where he rose to the rank of full Professor, he was recruited to the University of Louisville in 1998, Department of Neurological Surgery as the Henry D. and Marianna Garretson Endowed Professor of Spinal Cord Injury Research as well as Distinguished University Scholar. Dr. Whittemore is the founding Director of the Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center (KSCIRC), a position he still holds. Over the past 22 years, KSCIRC and its now 22 faculty members have successfully raised over $200 million dollars in research support to investigate treatments for spinal cord injury (SCI). Dr. Whittemore’s research program has continually focused on SCI and has spanned such diverse areas as novel neurotrophic factors, stem cell transplantation, remyelination, and currently locomotor control and novel strategies for neuroprotection. His research has always been at the forefront of these emerging new technologies as evidenced by his continuous research funding for the past 30 years with multiple grants from the National Institutes of Health. He has published over 150 refereed manuscripts and 30 book chapters on his work. He has mentored 18 Ph.D., M.D./Ph.D., or M.S. students, 18 Postdoctoral Fellows and numerous undergraduate and summer medical students. The success of those trainees after they left his laboratory is the accomplishment of which he is most proud.

Link to the University's 2020 Distinguished Faculty awards page