Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and the College of Medicine, and Carle Foundation Hospital neurologist Daniel Llano, who has been selected as the Urbana campus nominee for the 2014 Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences.

Congratulations to Assistant Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology and the College of Medicine, and Carle Foundation Hospital neurologist Daniel Llano, who has been selected as the Urbana campus nominee for the 2014 Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences.

The Pew Scholars Program provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health. The current grant level is $240,000; $60,000 per year for a four-year period. In 2014, Pew will name the next Class of Pew Scholars.

Dr. Llano’s lab studies the mechanisms by which complex sounds, such as speech, are processed by the auditory system. His work hypothesizes that the auditory system generates internal models of the sensory world and uses these models to extract meaning from complex sensory stimuli. Dr. Llano’s research informs common health care concerns such as the hearing disorder tinnitus, the effects of aging on hearing loss, and the impact of hearing loss on brain circuitry.

Dr. Llano is also affiliated with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. He is the discipline coordinator and main lecturer for the Brain, Behavior and Human Development course taken by first-year medical students. An alumnus of the University of Illinois Medical Scholars Program, Dr. Llano completed his Ph.D. in Molecular and Integrative Physiology in 2000 and his M.D. in 2002.