Ronald Tjalkens – Recent Achievement Award

For more than twenty years, Dr. Tjalkens has studied the role of environmental exposures to heavy metals, pesticides and other neurotoxic agents in the etiology and progression of neurodegenerative disorders of the central nervous system such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Since 1994, Dr. Tjalkens has published a total of 85 peer-reviewed scientific articles. Over half of these have been published in the past ten years (2014-2023). Google Scholar calculates his H-index as 37 and i10-index as 69. This is based on a total of 4103 citations of his publications. Exactly half of those citations have occurred since 2019 (in only 4 years). Since 2014, he received 18 invitations to speak nationally and internationally, and has been a reviewer for >40 NIH study sections and other federal grant review panels. Dr. Tjalkens has made a considerable impact on scholarly research in his field, in no small part through maintaining a continuous track record of extramural research funding for more than twenty years. This has included uninterrupted funding from the NIH over this period with a series of awards encompassing both individual and multi-investigator grants on which Dr. Tjalkens served as the Principal Investigator (PI). In addition, Dr. Tjalkens has received multiple grants for translational and therapeutics research from industry and private foundations, including a series of highly competitive awards from the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research to help develop new therapeutic approaches for treating PD based on blocking inflammation in the brain. Collectively, these grants have totaled well over $20 million in research funding, which includes several prestigious grants awards during the past eight years. In recognition of his recent scientific achievements, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recently awarded to Dr. Tjalkens an eight-year, $9.8M grant as part of the RIVER program – Revolutionizing Innovative, Visionary Environmental Health Research. This is the first ever RIVER grant received by a CSU investigator, which is designed to reward outstanding environmental health sciences researchers who demonstrate a broad vision and potential for continuing their impactful research.