Rate My Professor Justin Rustenhoven

Dr Justin Rustenhoven is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Auckland. He completed his PhD in Pharmacology at the University of Auckland in 2017, following undergraduate studies at the same institution. His research focuses on neuroimmunology, examining interactions between the immune system and the central nervous system in health and neurological disease. Key areas include meningeal immunity, the role of dural sinuses as a neuroimmune interface, meningeal fibrosis, and mechanisms relevant to brain injury, Parkinson's disease, and cognitive decline.

Rustenhoven has held research positions at the University of Auckland and previously contributed to work at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a recipient of the Rutherford Discovery Fellowship from the Royal Society of New Zealand and was a finalist for the Eppendorf Science Prize for Neurobiology in 2021. He received the Vice-Chancellor's Prize for Best Doctoral Thesis. His notable publications include the 2021 paper "Functional characterization of the dural sinuses as a neuroimmune interface" published in Cell, which has received extensive citations. He has secured major grants, including Marsden funding and support for projects on brain injuries and meningeal lymphatic function. Rustenhoven contributes to the academic community through research leadership and collaborations in the field of neuroimmunology.