Anna Devor.

Anna Devor

Professor of biomedical engineering
Boston University

Anna Devor is professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University (BU), associate director of the BU Neurophotonics Center, and editor-in-chief of the journal Neurophotonics, published by the optical engineering society SPIE.

Devor’s lab, the Neurovascular Imaging Laboratory, specializes in imaging neuronal, glial, vascular and metabolic activity in the brains of living and behaving experimental animals. Her research is focused on understanding fundamental neurovascular and neurometabolic principles of brain activity and the mechanistic underpinning of noninvasive brain imaging signals. She also works on imaging of stem-cell-derived human neuronal networks.

Devor received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After completing her postdoctoral training in neuroimaging at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, she established her own lab at the University of California, San Diego before moving it to BU in 2020. She has a wide network of collaborators across the world and is experienced in leading large, multidisciplinary teams.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Is our intelligence rooted in how living organisms are organized?

Kathryn Nave explains how a concept called constraint closure may be fundamental to understanding brains, minds and cognition.

By Paul Middlebrooks
15 July 2026 | 1 min read
Soha Ashrafi photo collage art.

Making an impact through academic administration

As executive director of research at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Neurobiology, Soha Ashrafi supports more than 300 scientists, students and staff members.

By Katie Moisse
15 July 2026 | 7 min read
Illustration of birdsong, bird brain, and DNA.

This paper changed my life: Embracing an early model for naturalistic neuroscience

A 1992 PNAS paper showed how birdsong upregulates the expression of an immediate early gene in bird forebrains. The work revealed to Ribeiro the importance of studying molecular responses in naturalistic contexts.

By Sidarta Ribeiro
14 July 2026 | 4 min read