Dr. Balaban has extensive experience in conducting multidisciplinary, cross-cutting research in biomedical sciences, engineering and social sciences, and has participated in the emerging fields of augmented cognition and neuroergonomics. He has also helped develop new patented technologies to gauge situational awareness and cognitive engagement from postural orienting responses and decision support software for responses to mass casualty events.
Dr. Balaban is an author of two books on seventeenth century medicine. He teaches the four core courses of the National Preparedness and Homeland Security certificate program at the University of Pittsburgh, the Medical Neurobiology course, an undergraduate History of Medicine Course, and a graduate course on Intellectual History of Neuroscience.
- Michigan State University, BA in History
- University of Chicago, PhD in Anatomy
- University of Tokyo, Postdoctoral Fellow
Education & Training
Dr. Balaban's overriding interest has been the formulation of mathematical and heuristic models and teleological approaches to interpret data translationally from basic science experiments in terms of behavioral and clinical phenomena. Using this approach, he has examined the interplay between neurological and psychological features of co-morbid aspects of balance disorders, migraine, and anxiety disorders. His current work includes extending the implications of these models to analogous features of mild traumatic brain injury and acoustic trauma, with both traditional approaches and novel methods such as mass spectrometric imaging of histological materials.