The first incumbent of the J. David and Virginia Wimberly Professorship in Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital is Kirk Daffner. After earning his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, Daffner completed his residencies in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and in neurology at Brigham and Women’s.
Daffner is the founder and chief of the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology at Brigham and Women’s. Under his leadership, the division has become a nationally recognized center of excellence in patient care, teaching and researching in the field of behavioral neurology and dementia.
The division has fostered the growth of several related clinical research labs in ERPs, fMRI, and neuropsychology that are committed to investigating memory, attention, and executive functioning in aging and dementia.
Daffner has published extensively on the neurological underpinnings of executive functions, on factors that may contribute to successful cognitive aging and on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
The professorship was established by J. David Wimberly in memory of his late wife, Virginia.
