Janice Zawaski

Janice Zawaski has 15 years of radiation research experience in two main areas. The first area focuses on studying radiotherapy side-effects on the brain using small animal imaging techniques and behavioral/cognitive assessment, which includes testing several potential radiation mitigators. The second area focuses on studying the bone marrow, gastrointestinal, and cardiac effects following acute whole-body radiation exposure, as well as testing a potential countermeasure in a combined acute radiation syndrome and wound model.

Zawaski received a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Mississippi State University and a doctorate in biomedical engineering from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. During graduate school, she studied the combined effects of radiotherapy and brain tumor presence on surrounding tissue. She then accepted a post-doctoral position in Dr. M. Waleed Gaber’s laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, in the Hematology and Oncology Section, where she was promoted as an assistant professor in 2014. Zawaski joined the Space Radiation Element in 2019.