Nagendran Ramalingam, Ph.D

Nagendran Ramalingam is an Assistant Professor in Molecular Medicine and Neurology at University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine. He is a trained cell biologist with a background in biochemistry, and his research focuses on understanding alpha-synuclein (αS) homeostasis in health and disease.

Nagendran earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Botany and (Plant) Biochemistry, respectively,  from Bharathidasan University, India. He subsequently obtained his Ph.D. in 2009 from Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Schleicher. His doctoral research focused on the role of the actin cytoskeleton signaling in cell migration was comentored by Dr. Jan Faix. Following his Ph.D., Nagendran joined the Gundersen lab at Columbia University as a postdoctoral research scientist, where he expanded his expertise in cytoskeletal biology, focusing on microtubule dynamics. His fascination with cytoskeletal dynamics in neurons ultimately led him to the field of Neurobiology.

In 2014, Nagendran accepted his first faculty position as an Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Neurology at Columbia University, working with Dr. Oren Levy. During this time, he began investigating cytoskeletal dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease and later explored the cause and consequence of serine-129 phosphorylated αS “pS129”, a major hallmark of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) pathology. This work was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Dennis Selkoe and Dr. Ulf Dettmer at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

In 2017, Nagendran relocated to Boston to formally join the Dettmer lab as a Research Fellow and was subsequently appointed as Instructor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School in July 2021. He was promoted to Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School in July 2024.

In February 2026, Nagendran started his new role at University of South Florida, where he established the Synuclein Interest Group at the Byrd Alzheimer’s Center and Research Institute.

He remains committed to balancing his research on the physiological and pathological roles of αS to advance our understanding of PD and Lewy body dementias.

Nagendran is fully committed to creating an environment that embraces students and postdocs of all backgrounds in educating next-generation scientists and teachers. He strongly believes that “science is for everyone”.