Rate My Professor Bowen Dempsey

Dr. Bowen Dempsey serves as Senior Lecturer (Research focused) in the Macquarie Medical School at Macquarie University. He completed his PhD at Macquarie University in 2016 with a thesis titled "The connectome of medullary sympathetic premotor neurons." Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) from 2016 to 2019 and at the Institut de Biologie de l'École Normale Supérieure (IBENS) from 2019 to 2021, before taking up his current appointment.

Dempsey's research topics encompass neural control of ingestion, airway protection, autonomic and respiratory effects, neonatal apneas, brainstem synchronization, medullary centres for lapping, and respiratory modulation of blood pressure. He has 13 articles from 2013 to 2025, including "Excessive respiratory modulation of blood pressure triggers hypertension" (Cell Metabolism, 2017, 61 Scopus citations), "A medullary centre for lapping in mice" (Nature Communications, 2021, 25 citations), "A novel reticular node in the brainstem synchronizes neonatal mouse crying with breathing" (Neuron, 2022, 27 citations), "Descending pathways from the superior colliculus mediating autonomic and respiratory effects associated with orienting behaviour" (Journal of Physiology, 2022, 9 citations), and "Mafa-dependent GABAergic activity promotes mouse neonatal apneas" (Nature Communications, 2022, 1 citation). Dempsey received the Australian Neuroscience Society Paxinos-Watson Prize (shared, 2018), ECR Enabling Scheme Award (2023), and Macquarie Medical School HDR Supervisor of the Year (2023). In 2024, he was awarded a $1,186,360 NHMRC Ideas Grant. He is unit convenor for MHHS8000 Research Foundations and teaching staff for MEDI3300 Neuroscience.