Shonat Named CSR Division Director

Dr. Ross Shonat has been named director of the Center for Scientific Review’s Division of Physiological and Pathological Sciences. 

He joined CSR in 2005 as a scientific review officer in the bioengineering sciences and technologies integrated review group (IRG). In 2009, he became chief of the interdisciplinary molecular sciences and training IRG and, in 2018, he moved within CSR to oversee the bioengineering sciences and technologies IRG. 

Shonat has been involved in multiple trans-NIH initiatives, including his service on the trans-NIH biomedical informatics coordinating committee and as CSR liaison to the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs, part of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives. 

At CSR, he’s taken the lead in developing new review tools and formats including the precursor to the virtual meeting format, now used across NIH, and video-assisted and telepresence meetings.

Before joining CSR, Shonat was an assistant professor in the department of biomedical engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where his research focused on oxygen tension imaging in the diabetic eye. He held funding from both the National Science Foundation and NIH and regularly published in high-impact journals. 

Shonat received his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and did postdoctoral research at the University of Arizona focused on microcirculatory physiology. He also did research at Carnegie Mellon University, where his work explored aspects of neurophysiology and molecular biology using magnetic resonance imaging.