Tay Netoff named inaugural recipient of Ronald L. and Janet A. Christenson Faculty Impact Fellowship

September 26, 2025 — Department of Biomedical Engineering Professor Tay Netoff has been named the inaugural recipient of the Ronald L. and Janet A. Christenson Faculty Impact Fellowship, a distinguished three-year faculty fellowship.

The fellowship, made possible by a generous gift from the Christenson family, is designed to help the College of Science and Engineering retain its best and brightest faculty and fuel high-impact discovery and scholarship. It will support Netoff's research from July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2028. As the fellowship’s first holder, he will receive $20,000 per year in discretionary funds to advance his research and scholarly activities.

“I am honored to accept the Ronald L. and Janet A. Christenson Faculty Impact Fellowship for the 2025–2028 term and sincerely grateful for the support,” said Netoff. “These resources will directly accelerate my lab’s work translating neuroengineering discoveries into clinical therapies for spinal cord injury, epilepsy, depression, Parkinson’s disease, and chronic pain.”

Netoff’s work, conducted with several University of Minnesota colleagues, focuses on optimizing spinal cord stimulation for restoring motor and autonomic function after spinal cord injury, refining deep brain stimulation for epilepsy, advancing cortical and spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain, and developing cortical stimulation for depression. These studies have delivered meaningful improvements to patients who had exhausted conventional options, offering renewed hope and quality of life.

“The Christenson Fellowship will provide critical support so my lab can do the early-stage clinical studies and interdisciplinary partnerships that drive these advances, accelerating the path from laboratory discovery to widespread therapeutic impact,” says Netoff. “I look forward to the impact this fellowship will have on our research and, ultimately, on the lives of the patients we serve.”