Robert A. Stern, PhD

Dr. Robert Stern is Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Anatomy & Neurobiology at Boston University (BU) Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized expert on the neurodegenerative disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In 2008, he co-founded the BU Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (now BU CTE Center), along with Drs. Ann McKee, Robert Cantu, and Chris Nowinski. He has been the Director of Clinical Research for the BU CTE Center since its creation. From 2010-2019, he was also the Director of the Clinical Core of the BU Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. For the past 17 years, the focus of Dr. Stern’s research has been to develop methods of detecting and diagnosing CTE during life and to better understand the risk factors for later-life neurological consequences of repetitive mild traumatic brain injuries in former American football players, soccer players, and other contact sport athletes. He was the PI of the first grant funded by NIH to study CTE, for the DETECT Study. Subsequently, he was the contact mPI (with mPIs, Drs. Jeff Cummings, Eric Reiman, and Martha Shenton) for the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project, an NIH-funded, multi-center, 8-year study (2015-2023) to develop methods of detecting and diagnosing CTE during life, including the development and examination of neuroimaging and fluid biomarkers, establishing and validating diagnostic criteria for Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome (TES), and studying potential risk factors of the disease. He is currently one of four mPIs (along with Drs. Michael Alosco [contact], Gil Rabinovici, and Eric Reiman) for the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project-II, an NIH-funded multi-center study expanding upon the original DIAGNOSE study, examining new potential blood and imaging biomarkers to diagnose CTE in living patients and to differentiate CTE from similar diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Dr. Stern was also the PI (currently co-investigator; Dr. Alosco, PI) of the Head Impact & Trauma Surveillance Study (HITSS; also funded by NIH), a longitudinal online assessment of over 6000 former American football players and soccer players (age 40 years or older), who participated at any level. Dr. Stern’s other major areas of funded research have included the diagnosis and treatment of AD, the risk for cognitive decline in older breast cancer patients, and thyroid-brain relationships. He was site PI for numerous AD clinical trials and was a member of the Steering Committee for the AD Cooperative Study (ADCS). He has had continuous research funding for over 35 years, from NIH, the U.S. Department of Defense, foundations, and industry. Dr. Stern was a member of the NFL Players Association’s Mackey-White Player Health and Safety Committee as well as the court-appointed Medical Science Committee of the NCAA Concussion Settlement. He has over 250 peer-reviewed publications, has been a member of several medical journal editorial boards, and is the co-editor of two books, including Sports Neurology, part of the Handbook of Clinical Neurology series, and the Oxford Handbook of Adult Cognitive Disorders. He is a clinical neuropsychologist and has developed several widely used neuropsychological tests, including the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB). Dr. Stern has mentored numerous undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral trainees over the past 35 years. He is a Fellow of the American Neuropsychiatric Association and the National Academy of Neuropsychology. He was the recipient of the 2025 Leon Thal Prize for Research Excellence.

Click here to see a list of his publications.