Randolph J. Nudo, PhD, FAHA, FASNR

Professional Background

Randolph J. Nudo, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at the University of Kansas Medical Center. During his career at KU Medical Center, Dr. Nudo served as University Distinguished Professor, Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation and Associate Director of the Landon Center on Aging. He also held the Marion Merrell Dow Distinguished Professorship in Aging.

A neuroscientist whose career spanned more than three decades, Dr. Nudo studied how the brain reorganizes and repairs itself following injury. His work helped challenge the long-held belief that the adult brain had little capacity to change its neural wiring after injury. Early studies from his laboratory and others demonstrated that surviving neurons could form new connections and that the brain could reorganize itself to help restore lost function. These discoveries contributed to the scientific foundation of modern evidence-based rehabilitation.

Dr. Nudo's research was continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health beginning in 1985. Throughout his career, he worked at the intersection of neuroscience and rehabilitation, helping translate discoveries about neuroplasticity into approaches designed to improve recovery after neurologic injury.

Mentorship was also a significant part of his academic career. He mentored students, therapists, researchers and physician-scientists, helping prepare others to carry rehabilitation science into new treatments and technologies. In 2025, he received KU Medical Center's Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award, which recognizes professors with more than 20 years of service who have demonstrated a sustained commitment to the intellectual, scholarly and professional growth of junior faculty.

• BS, Psychology/Statistics, Pennsylvania State University
• MS, Psychology, Florida State University
• PhD, Psychology/Neuroscience, Florida State University
• Post Doctoral Fellowship, Physiology, University of California at San Francisco

Research

Overview

Dr. Nudo's Cortical Plasticity Laboratory focused on understanding the brain's capacity to reorganize and recover after injury and on developing therapeutic approaches grounded in the mechanisms of neuroplasticity.

His research demonstrated how rehabilitation could do more than help patients compensate for lost function. Repeated movement and activity could drive biological changes in neural networks, helping establish the principle that targeted rehabilitation can influence recovery at the level of the brain itself. Over the course of his career, this work expanded into areas including brain stimulation, robotic therapies, regenerative medicine and individualized rehabilitation strategies.

Dr. Nudo also collaborated with engineers and scientists across disciplines. His work included the development of implantable electronic microdevices designed to repair damaged brain pathways following traumatic brain injury, for which he was a co-inventor on related patents. He also collaborated on biomaterials for repairing cranial defects and wearable imaging technologies for studying blood flow and activity within deeper structures of the brain.

Across these efforts, his research centered on a fundamental question: How does recovery actually occur after neurologic injury, and how can understanding those mechanisms lead to more effective rehabilitation? That emphasis on connecting basic neuroscience with clinical rehabilitation remained a defining theme of his career. As he reflected near retirement, his goal was to help keep rehabilitation practice grounded in an understanding of the biological mechanisms underlying recovery.