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Vladimir Ivkovic, Ph.D.

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Biography
Webster University, Vienna, AustriaB.A.05/1999Psychology, Philosophy
University of Zagreb, Zagreb, CroatiaM.Sc.09/2005Biology
International Space University & NASA Johnson Space Center, Strasbourg, France & Houston, TXM.Sc.09/2006Space Studies, Space Neuroscience & Physiology
University of Houston, Houston, TXPh.D.12/2012Neuromotor Control, Cognitive Science
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MAPostdoc05/2014Neuroscience, Space Medicine & Physiology
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MAPostdoc08/2015Clinical Outcomes Research
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MAPostdoc11/2018Neuroscience, Space Medicine & Physiology
1998 - 1999
Dean's List
1999
B.A. Magna Cum Laude
1999
Behavioral and Social Science Departmental Honors
1999
Alumni Association Undergraduate Leadership Award
1999
Undergraduate Student Leadership Honor Roll
2000 - 2005
M.Sc. Research Fellowship
2005 - 2006
Academic Fellowship for Graduate Students Abroad
2005 - 2006
Academic Fellowship for International Graduate Students
2005 - 2006
M.Sc. Academic Fellowship
2005 - 2006
M.Sc. Academic Fellowship
2007 - 2012
Ph.D. Teaching Fellowship
2008
College of Education Alumni Scholarship
2008
Graduate Student Research Award
2009
Research Fellowship
2009
Doctoral Student Research Presentation Award
2009
Loleet Usener Eckel Scholarship
2009
Dr. Mary Lou and Eddie Hernandez Scholarship
2009
Mylie E. & Charles A. Durham Endowment Scholarship
2009
Graduate Student Research Poster Award
2009
Graduate Student Research Award
2010
Faith Gladstone Marshall Endowment Scholarship
2010
Margie Sterr Movement Science Scholarship
2010
Velma Glass Chambers Scholarship
2010
Overall Graduate Student Excellence Award
2010
Graduate Student Research Award
2011 - 2012
Presidential, Cullen & Erhardt Fellowship
2012
Health and Human Performance Research Scholarship
2016
Honorable Mention for Clinical Research
2018
Psychiatry Department First Prize for Clinical Research
2019
Partners in Excellence Individual Award for Outstanding Community Contributions

Overview
I was trained as a translational neuroscientist and integrative physiologist with emphases in spaceflight/extreme physiology, neuroimaging, and neuromodulation. My research focuses on applying ambulatory brain and physiology monitoring for assessment of neurophysiologic and neurobehavioral disorders elicited by exposure to extreme operational environments or activities, and development of countermeasures for their mitigation. My technical research expertise encompasses custom-developed ambulatory brain and multimodality physiology monitoring systems—NINscan, based on near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)—as well as standard monitoring techniques including (f)MRI, 2D/3D/Doppler ultrasound, ophthalmic tonometry, biopotentials (ECG, EMG, EEG, EOG, EDA), actigraphy, and polysomnography.

Within this research paradigm, I conducted numerous studies on healthy, elite (astronauts, firefighters, active military, athletes), and patient (Parkinson’s disease, cardiosurgical) populations in operational and clinical environments. Some of these include: (i) behavioral-genetics of serotoninergic activity and neurobehavioral disorders in genetic island isolates; (ii) assessment of vibrotactile sensory augmentation efficacy as countermeasure for spaceflight vestibular deconditioning and motor-cognitive performance in Parkinson’s disease; (iii) evaluation of microgravity emergency evacuation protocols from the International Space Station (ISS) within French Space Agency’s (CNES) Parabolic Flight Campaign #59), (iv) the first ambulatory 24-hour NIRS brain / multimodal physiologic monitoring (National Space Biomedical Research Institute, NSBRI); (v) demonstration of changes in cerebrovascular pulsatility during NASA Flight Opportunity Program parabolic microgravity flights; (vi) testing mechanical countermeasures for spaceflight-induced cephalad fluid shifts (NSBRI); (vii) validation of ambulatory functional brain and physiologic monitoring during exercise, cognitive tasks, sleep, and spaceflight-operational performance tasks in NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) facility and aboard the ISS; (viii) demonstration of brain movement within the skull during head impacts with implications for on-field traumatic brain injury (TBI) detection (NFL Players Association), and (ix) large data set analyses of cardio-surgical clinical outcomes.

I currently serve as a principal investigator on a translational study of neurophysiologic and cognitive markers of resiliency to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in firefighters and PTSD patients funded by The Last Call Foundation, and a co-investigator / neurobehavioral team lead on the first complex spaceflight study investigating functional brain, neurobehavioral, immune, metabolomic, and sleep changes in 2-, 6-, and 12-month missions in NASA's HERA facility and aboard the International Space Station, funded by NASA.

I have developed curricula and taught extensively throughout my career both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, including courses in psychophysiology, human systems physiology, spaceflight/extreme physiology, neurorehabilitation, biomechanics, and have mentored undergraduate and graduate students. My leadership and management experience include organizing scientific and/or educational meetings, managing neuromotor/biomechanics as well as neuroimaging/integrative physiology laboratories, and establishing the Harvard Firefighter Health Initiative.

My continuing interests include human neurophysiologic and neurobehavioral performance in extreme operational environments—such as spaceflight, military deployments, and firefighting—development of countermeasures for mitigation of thus-induced medical conditions (e.g. spaceflight neurobehavioral decline and intracranial hypertension, PTSD, TBI, etc.), and their translation into clinical practice for treating analogous idiopathic clinical conditions in the veteran and general populations.

Featured Content

Bibliographic
Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can login to make corrections and additions.
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PMC Citations indicate the number of times the publication was cited by articles in PubMed Central, and the Altmetric score represents citations in news articles and social media. (Note that publications are often cited in additional ways that are not shown here.) Fields are based on how the National Library of Medicine (NLM) classifies the publication's journal and might not represent the specific topic of the publication. Translation tags are based on the publication type and the MeSH terms NLM assigns to the publication. Some publications (especially newer ones and publications not in PubMed) might not yet be assigned Field or Translation tags.) Click a Field or Translation tag to filter the publications.
  1. Ong J, Tavakkoli A, Strangman G, Zaman N, Kamran SA, Zhang Q, Ivkovic V, Lee AG. Neuro-ophthalmic imaging and visual assessment technology for spaceflight associated neuro-ocular syndrome (SANS). Surv Ophthalmol. 2022 Sep-Oct; 67(5):1443-1466. PMID: 35461882.
    Citations:    Fields:    
  2. Bucciarelli V, Nasi M, Bianco F, Seferovic J, Ivkovic V, Gallina S, Mattioli AV. Depression pandemic and cardiovascular risk in the COVID-19 era and long COVID syndrome: Gender makes a difference. Trends Cardiovasc Med. 2022 01; 32(1):12-17. PMID: 34619336; PMCID: PMC8490128.
    Citations: 13     Fields:    Translation:HumansPHPublic Health
  3. He S, Ivkovic V, Friedstat J, Lee J. Physician and first responder collaborations to ease personal protective equipment shortages. Am J Emerg Med. 2022 05; 55:213. PMID: 34229941; PMCID: PMC8240462.
    Citations:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
  4. Sarlija M, Popovic S, Jagodic M, Jovanovic T, Ivkovic V, Zhang Q, Strangman G, Cosic K. Prediction of Task Performance From Physiological Features of Stress Resilience. IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2021 06; 25(6):2150-2161. PMID: 33253118.
    Citations: 3     Fields:    
  5. Wong L, Pradhan S, Karasinski J, Hu C, Strangman G, Ivkovic V, Arsintescu L, Flynn-Evans E. Performance on the Robotics On-Board Trainer (ROBoT-r) Spaceflight Simulation During Acute Sleep Deprivation. Front Neurosci. 2020; 14:697. PMID: 32792894; PMCID: PMC7385239.
    Citations: 1     
  6. Ivkovic V, Sommers B, Cefaratti DA, Newman G, Thomas DW, Alexander DG, Strangman GE. Operationally Relevant Behavior Assessment Using the Robotic On-Board Trainer for Research (ROBoT-r). Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2019 Sep 01; 90(9):819-825. PMID: 31426899.
    Citations: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  7. Krešimir Cosic, Marko Šarlija, Vladimir Ivkovic, Quan Zhang, Gary Strangman, Siniša Popovic. Stress Resilience Assessment Based on Physiological Features in Selection of Air Traffic Controllers. IEEE Access. 2019; (10.1109/AC):18. View Publication.
  8. Kaneko T, Shekar P, Ivkovic V, Longford NT, Huang CC, Sigurdsson MI, Neely RC, Yammine M, Ejiofor JI, Montiero Vieira V, Shahram JT, Habchi KM, Malzberg GW, Martin PS, Bloom J, Isselbacher EM, Muehlschlegel JD, Sundt TM, Body SC. Should the dilated ascending aorta be repaired at the time of bicuspid aortic valve replacement? Eur J Cardiothorac Surg. 2018 03 01; 53(3):560-568. PMID: 29149323.
    Citations: 5     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  9. Strangman GE, Ivkovic V, Zhang Q. Wearable brain imaging with multimodal physiological monitoring. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2018 03 01; 124(3):564-572. PMID: 28705994.
    Citations: 4     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  10. Kaneko T, Shekar P, Ivkovic V, Longford NT, Huang CC, Sigurdsson M, Neely RC, Yammine M, Ejiofor J, Vieira VM, Shahram JT, Habchi KM, Malzberg GW, Bloom J, Isselbacher EM, Muehlschlegel JD, Sundt TM, Body SC. Should the dilated ascending aorta be repaired at the time of bicuspid aortic valve replacement?. European Journal of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. 2017; 3(53):560-568.
  11. Hu G, Zhang Q, Ivkovic V, Strangman GE. Ambulatory diffuse optical tomography and multimodality physiological monitoring system for muscle and exercise applications. J Biomed Opt. 2016 Sep; 21(9):091314. PMID: 27467190.
    Citations: 9     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  12. Kaneko T, Ejiofor JI, Neely RC, McGurk S, Ivkovic V, Stevenson LW, Leacche M, Cohn LH. Aortic Regurgitation With Markedly Reduced Left Ventricular Function Is Not a Contraindication for Aortic Valve Replacement. Ann Thorac Surg. 2016 Jul; 102(1):41-7. PMID: 27016840.
    Citations: 4     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  13. Gosev I, Yammine M, McGurk S, Ejiofor JI, Norman A, Ivkovic V, Cohn LH. Should Moderate-to-Severe Tricuspid Regurgitation be Repaired During Reoperative Left-Sided Valve Procedures? Semin Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2016 Spring; 28(1):38-45. PMID: 27568132.
    Citations: 1     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  14. Ivkovic V, Fisher S, Paloski WH. Smartphone-based tactile cueing improves motor performance in Parkinson's disease. Parkinsonism Relat Disord. 2016 Jan; 22:42-7. PMID: 26589004.
    Citations: 4     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  15. Gosev I, Yammine M, Leacche M, McGurk S, Ivkovic V, D'Ambra MN, Cohn LH. Long term outcomes of posterior leaflet folding valvuloplasty for mitral valve regurgitation. Ann Cardiothorac Surg. 2015 Sep; 4(5):428-32. PMID: 26539347; PMCID: PMC4598476.
    Citations: 1     
  16. Gosev I, Yammine M, Leacche M, Ivkovic V, McGurk S, Cohn LH. Reoperative aortic valve replacement through upper hemisternotomy. Ann Cardiothorac Surg. 2015 Jan; 4(1):88-90. PMID: 25694985; PMCID: PMC4311163.
    Citations:    
  17. Zhang Q, Ivkovic V, Hu G, Strangman GE. Twenty-four-hour ambulatory recording of cerebral hemodynamics, systemic hemodynamics, electrocardiography, and actigraphy during people's daily activities. J Biomed Opt. 2014 Apr; 19(4):47003. PMID: 24781591.
    Citations: 3     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  18. Ivkovic V, Kurz MJ. Parkinson's disease influences the structural variations present in the leg swing kinematics. Motor Control. 2011 Jul; 15(3):359-75. PMID: 21878689.
    Citations: 1     Fields:    Translation:Humans
  19. Vilicic N, Ivkovic V, Janovic T, Jovanovic V. Cybernetic model (LOPI): Simulation of demographic dynamics of Croatian population. Cybernetics and Systems. 2007; 4(38):323-347.
  20. 4. Ivkovic V, Vitart V, Rudan I, Janicijevic B, Smolej-Narancic N, Skaric-Juric T, Barbalic M, Biloglav Z, Polasek O, Kolcic I, Visscher P, Hayward C, Hastie ND, Anderson N, Campbell H, Wright AF, Rudan P, Deary IJ. The Eysenck personality factors: psychometric structure, reliability, heritability and phenotypic and genetic correlations with psychological distress in an isolated Croatian population. Personality and Individual Differences. 2007; 1(42):123-133.
  21. Janovic T, Ivkovic V, Nazor D, Grammer K, Jovanovic V. Empathy, communication, deception. Coll Antropol. 2003 Dec; 27(2):809-22. PMID: 14746174.
    Citations:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
  22. Ivkovic V, Jovanovic V. Anthropocybernetic modeling--from population demography to the concept of values. Coll Antropol. 2002 Dec; 26 Suppl:15-23. PMID: 12674832.
    Citations:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
  23. Boncina J, Ivkovic V, Jovanovic V. Interaction with the environment: anthropological cybernetic model. Coll Antropol. 2001 Dec; 25(2):413-23. PMID: 11811271.
    Citations:    Fields:    Translation:Humans
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Funded by the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences through its Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program, grant number UL1TR002541.