Joanna Mattis, MD

Joanna Mattis, M.D, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Neurology in the University of Michigan Medical School. Dr. Mattis is a physician scientist with clinical and research specialization in epilepsy.

Dr. Mattis earned a combined B.S., M.S. degree in Neurobiology at Yale University in 2006 and an M.Phil. in Physiology, Development, and Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge in the UK in 2007. She then completed an M.D., Ph.D. at Stanford University in 2015, obtaining her Ph.D. in the laboratory of Dr. Karl Deisseroth, credited as co-founder of the field of optogenetics. She moved to the University of Pennsylvania to complete a Neurology residency (2015-2019) and Epilepsy fellowship (2020-2021). She spent two years (2019-2020; 2021-2022) as Instructor in Neurology, gaining further expertise in experimental epileptology.

Dr. Mattis began her appointment at the University of Michigan as an Assistant Professor in Neurology in 2022. The Mattis Laboratory focuses on characterization and manipulation of neuronal circuits in preclinical epilepsy models.

Dr. Mattis’s awards include a Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarship and Young Investigator Awards from the American Epilepsy Society and the Grass Foundation.

epilepsy, epilepsy surgery, video-EEG seizure monitoring

University of Michigan Health participates with most health insurance plans.

Dr. Mattis is interested in how neuronal circuits are dysfunctional in epilepsy, and how these circuits can be modified to improve seizures. The Mattis laboratory employs optogenetics, chemogenetics, electrophysiology, and calcium imaging, to observe and manipulate neuronal populations within preclinical models of epilepsy. The long term goal of the lab is to develop new epilepsy treatments that are rationally designed to target precise circuit elements. Please visit her lab website for more information.