Patrick Kochanek, MD MCCM is a Distinguished Professor of Critical Care Medicine, the Ake & Inger Grenvik Professor of Critical Care Medicine, and a Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, and Clinical and Translational Science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he has served on the faculty since 1986.   He received his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Michigan, and his MD, AOA from the University of Chicago.  After a residency in Pediatrics at the University of California San Diego, he completed a fellowship in Pediatric Critical Care Medicine at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC, before being recruited to the Critical Care Medicine faculty in Pittsburgh.  In 1994 he was named director of the International Resuscitation Research Center, following the footsteps of legendary CPR pioneer Dr. Peter Safar.  Dr. Kochanek renamed the Center, the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research, which he has directed for 31 years.  Dr. Kochanek expanded the Center’s research in traumatic brain injury, which complimentedits renowned cerebral resuscitation research, and he expanded its pediatric component.  Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Kochanek led the first multi-center pre-clinical therapy and biomarker screening consortium in TBI, Operation Brain Trauma Therapy (OBTT) and has focused on the topics of neuroinflammation, neuroprotection, and hypothermia in acute brain injury.  Under his leadership, the Safar Center has grown to house a multi-departmental faculty including Critical Care Medicine, Neurological Surgery, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and others, that has launched countless trainees to careers of national and international prominence.  In addition to his over 650 publications—which have been cited nearly 30,000 times—he served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Pediatric Critical Care Medicine for 20 years and is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Neurotrauma.