David Vumbaco, Ph.D.

Self Introduction

David joined NTERI in October 2025 following five years at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, where he directed multi-institutional consortium science under the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN). He received his B.S. in Physics and Biology from Loyola University New Orleans and his Ph.D. in Neuroscience/Electrophysiology from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, where his dissertation focused on auditory cortex development using in vivo electrophysiology. He also taught graduate courses in Neuroanatomy and Medical Neuroscience during his doctoral training.

Between academia and the Allen Institute, Dr. Vumbaco founded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of Alpha Computing, Inc., where he developed a portable wireless EEG platform for real-world behavioral monitoring, attracting R&D partnerships with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Samsung, and the U.S. Department of Defense. He has published peer-reviewed work in Science and Cell Reports characterizing the morphoelectric and transcriptomic diversity of human neocortical cell types, resources now foundational to the global neuroscience community.

Dr. Vumbaco is a strategic collaborator with many of the world's largest technology conglomerates including Amazon, Google, Samsung, Harvard University, UC Berkeley, NASA JPL, The Allen Institute for Brain Science, and the U.S. Department of Defense. 

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Current Research Focus

• DPRIT (Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas): Leveraging the retina as a non-invasive diagnostic window for dementia and neurodegenerative disease through machine learning-driven interpretation of retinal images, with the goal of enabling earlier detection and prevention of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias
• Nursing SANE/NTERI Collaboration: Interdisciplinary initiative combining nursing forensic science (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner program) with retinal imaging diagnostics to explore the retina as a biomarker platform
• Morphoelectric and transcriptomic characterization of human neocortical cell types (Patch-seq, single-cell RNA sequencing, morphological reconstruction)
• Multi-modal connectomics and neural circuit analysis in human and non-human primate neocortex
• Machine learning for behavioral state classification and biometric signal processing
• Wireless EEG platform development for naturalistic neuroscience and human factors research

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Selected Publications

• Chartrand T, Lee BR, ..., Vumbaco DJ, et al. (2023). Morphoelectric and transcriptomic divergence of the layer 1 interneuron repertoire in human versus mouse neocortex. Science. 382:eadf0805. PMID: 37824667
• Lee BR, Dalley R, ..., Vumbaco DJ, et al. (2023). Signature morphoelectric properties of diverse GABAergic interneurons in the human neocortex. Science. 382:eadf6484. PMID: 37824669
• Dembrow N, Sawchuck S, ..., Vumbaco DJ, et al. (2024). Areal specializations in the morpho-electric and transcriptomic properties of primate layer 5 extratelencephalic projection neurons. Cell Reports. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.01069

Full Publication List