Rate My Professor Cristin Welle

Cristin Welle is a Professor in the Departments of Physiology and Biophysics and Neurosurgery at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, part of the University of Colorado Denver. She holds the position of Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Neurosurgery and directs the BIOElectrics Lab. Welle obtained her BS from the College of William and Mary in 2004 and her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. After completing her doctorate, she established the Neural Interfaces Program at the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health Office of Science and Engineering Laboratories. In 2016, she joined the faculty in Neurosurgery and Bioengineering at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, advancing to her current professorial roles.

Welle's research centers on the interactions between neurological medical devices and the nervous system, with emphasis on neuromodulation, cortical plasticity, motor control, and translational neurotechnology. Her BIOElectrics Lab employs optogenetics, chronic electrophysiology, and longitudinal in vivo imaging in animal models to examine circuit-level effects of neuromodulatory and brain-computer interface devices during motor skill learning. Prominent investigations include vagus nerve stimulation to induce plasticity through inhibitory interneurons and promote remyelination for motor recovery, the role of myelination in cortical circuit function and skilled movement, and development of 3D-FAST optical interfaces for volumetric neural sensing and modulation. As principal or co-principal investigator, she has received multiple NIH grants, such as R01NS137560 (Vagus nerve stimulation drives plasticity through inhibitory interneurons, 2024-2029), R01NS115975 (The role of myelination in cortical circuit function and motor behavior, 2020-2029), and R21EY029458 (3D-Fast Optical Interface for Rapid Volumetric Neural Sensing and Modulation, 2018-2021). Her influential publications feature "Vagus nerve stimulation drives selective circuit modulation through cholinergic reinforcement" (Neuron, 2022), "Motor learning promotes remyelination via new and surviving oligodendrocytes" (Nature Neuroscience, 2020), "Development and characterization of a chronic implant mouse model for vagus nerve stimulation" (eLife, 2021), and "Myelin Supports Cortical Circuit Function Underlying Skilled Movement" (bioRxiv, 2025). Welle earned the Boettcher Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Award in 2016 for developing high-density neural sensors for bioelectronics therapeutics.