Lauren Hammer, MD, PhD

Dr. Lauren Hammer is a movement disorders neurologist and neural engineer whose work aims to advance neuromodulation therapies for Parkinson’s disease. She is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and core faculty in the Center for Neuroengineering and Therapeutics. Dr. Hammer earned her BS, PhD, and MD from Northwestern University, where her doctoral work focused on neural interfaces and robotic prosthesis control. She completed neurology residency at Mass General Brigham and a movement disorders fellowship at UCSF, where she helped pioneer adaptive deep brain stimulation (DBS) approaches for Parkinson’s disease. Her research integrates invasive and machine learning methods to understand the neurophysiology underlying motor symptoms and to optimize neuromodulation therapies. Through her lab at Penn, Dr. Hammer aims to develop next-generation DBS strategies that are both mechanistically informed and personalized.