Jan Kubanek, PhD, joined the faculty of WashU Medicine Department of Psychiatry on August 1, 2025, as associate professor of psychiatry in the Division of Clinical Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, with secondary appointments in the Department of Neurology and Department of Radiology. He brings combined experience in human and macaque electrophysiology, human and macaque behavioral assays, and ultrasound-based brain stimulation in humans and macaques. His research interests include development of novel noninvasive precision neuromodulation (circuit-directed treatments) to provide new, scalable interventions for patients with depression, chronic pain, opioid addiction, essential tremor, and other disorders of brain function.
Jan Kubanek received his PhD at WashU Medicine (Neuroscience) and postdoctoral training at Stanford. He comes to WashU Medicine from the University of Utah, where he was assistant professor of biomedical engineering and directed his Targeted Treatments Laboratory. While at University of Utah, Kubanek built Diadem and Remus, MRI-compatible systems for precision noninvasive neuromodulation of the human and macaque brains. He also founded SPIRE Therapeutics.
Kubanek has been continuously funded by the NIH since 2017 and the National Science Foundation since 2023, and has been awarded other diverse sources of funding from foundations, including Wellcome Leap. He has submitted over 15 patents.
He looks forward to working with faculty, staff, and trainees to conduct causal studies of network function and circuit-directed treatments of depression, chronic pain, addiction, cognitive decline, and other disorders of brain function.
Email: kubanek@wustl.edu
Lab Location: Jeffrey T. Fort Neuroscience Research Building