Richard Dortch, PhD

Associate Professor
MRI, Peripheral Neuropathies

Dortch Laboratory

Richard Dortch, PhD, is the Ellen and Howard Katz Chair for Neuroimaging Innovation and is an associate professor of imaging research in the Neuroimaging Innovation Center in the Department of Translational Neuroscience at Barrow Neurological Institute.

Dr. Dortch’s expertise includes radiological sciences and biomedical engineering. He is a member of the American Academy of Neurology and the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Dr. Dortch earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in biomedical engineering from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He completed a postdoctoral research fellowship in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he served as assistant professor before joining the faculty at Barrow in 2019. His research has been funded through the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense.

Dr. Dortch’s research interests include developing, optimizing, and validating quantitative MRI methods for neuroimaging applications beyond the brain. More specifically, Dr. Dortch focuses on developing MRI methods to overcome specific challenges of nerve and spinal cord imaging, translating these methods to clinical populations (e.g., to guide surgery, improve diagnostics, and serve as biomarkers of therapeutic response), and validating these methods in relevant preclinical models. He applies these methods to evaluate the pathological underpinnings (e.g., demyelination, axonal degeneration) of nerve and spinal cord trauma, peripheral neuropathies, and multiple sclerosis. Dr. Dortch was instrumental in Barrow gaining admission to the North American Imaging in MS Cooperative (NAIMS).