Email

donoviel@bcm.edu

Positions

Executive Director

Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH)

Associate Professor

Center for Space Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX US

Associate Professor

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Baylor College of Medicine

Education

B.A. from University Of California, San Diego

01/1986 - La Jolla, CA United States

Ph.D. from University Of Washington

01/1993 - Seattle, WA United States

Advanced Training from Mount Sinai Research Institute

01/2000 - Toronto, Canada

Honors & Awards

Professional Achievements

• Pioneer Award, National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI); January 25, 2017 • Outstanding Leadership Award, 2016, for exceptional leadership of the NSBRI Industry Forum. • NASA Group Achievement Award, 2014, for work as a member of the Executive Steering Committee for the collection of six scientific articles on “"The Impact of Sex and Gender on Adaptation to Space" published in The Journal of Women's Health. • Special Commendation Award for Exceptional Service as Acting NSBRI Associate Director and Chief Scientist, 2012, NASA Human Research Program.

Professional Statement

As Executive Director for the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH), Dorit Donoviel, Ph.D., leads a $0.25B NASA-funded consortium of Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), California Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts Institute for Technology. TRISH finds and funds disruptive human health and performance solutions for astronauts exploring deep space. She leads domestic and international research programs bridging academia, industry, and government to deliver fast and cost-effective tangible results. Under her leadership, TRISH has led several Pathfinder projects, including the establishment of the only commercial spaceflight human research program and database, collecting biomedical data and samples from private individuals exploring space into a shared repository to be used by the entire research community. Dr. Donoviel is the recipient of public service awards from the NASA Human Research Program and the Pioneer Award from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute and was selected as a BCM Woman of Excellence and a BCM Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Scholar. She serves on the Brain Trust of the XPrize Foundation, the Inter-Astra advisory board, and the Board of Trustees of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute. Dr. Donoviel authors scientific and press articles. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at BCM. She serves as the associate director of the Center for Space Medicine, where she lectures and mentors graduate and medical students.
Before coming to BCM, Dr. Donoviel led a drug discovery program at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals. She received a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from the University of California, San Diego, and a doctorate in Biochemistry from the University of Washington. Dr. Donoviel completed a Human Frontiers Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she created and widely distributed novel murine genetic models of Alzheimer's Disease.

Websites

Selected Publications

• McLaughlin, MF, Donoviel, DB, Jones, JA "Novel indications for commonly used medications as radiation protectants in spaceflight." Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2017 Jul;88(7):664-669. Pubmed PMID: 28641684
• Bershad, EM, Anand, A, DeSantis, S, Yang, M, Tang, R. Calvillo, E, Damani, R, Maldonado, N, Chethan P. Rao, V, Suarez, SI, Clark, JB, Sutton, JP, and Donoviel, DB "Clinical Validation of Vittamed Non-Invasive ICP Meter in Patients with Elevated Intracranial Pressure: A Prospective Cross-Sectional Study." World Neurosurg. 2016;89:647-653.
• Donoviel, DB and Sutton, JP "Biomedical and Technological Advances Made for Humans in Space are Improving Health on Earth." Curr Biotech. 2013;2:184-191.