Dr. Walsh has longstanding clinical and research interests in the neurosciences that began as an undergraduate at Georgetown University. During Dr. Walsh’s subsequent training in the NIH-funded MD/PhD program at The University of Cincinnati, he built upon his interest in brain networks which naturally led to an interest in the clinical field of Neurology. Dr. Walsh thus pursued residency training in Neurology at The University of Chicago, and his growing research and clinical research interests resulted in a first-author scientific publication in the journal NeuroImage, the publication of a book chapter reviewing the etiology of Parkinson’s Disease, and the publication of a clinical report in the journal Neurology during his residency. It was a combination of these formative experiences as a physician-scientist that led Dr. Walsh to pursue fellowship training in Movement Disorders, Memory Disorders, and neuroimaging to both investigate the fundamental mechanisms underlying brain network physiology as well as treat the clinical phenotype of their dysfunction.

Dr. Walsh thus pursued fellowship training with two acknowledged world leaders in Movement Disorders, Dr. David Standaert and Dr. Ray Watts, at The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), where he developed an MRI-based analysis of brain networks underlying cognitive dysfunction in Parkinson’s Disease. Though Dr. Walsh’s imaging approaches were novel to UAB at the time, he actively sought and obtained external guidance from a world-leader in this field, Dr. David Eidelberg. Utilizing this collaborative mentorship approach, Dr. Walsh was able to obtain highly competitive funding from the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation (PDF; their only Clinical Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded for 2009-2010) as well as from the Civitan International Research Center Emerging Scholars Program during the second year of his fellowship, and he also received a consecutive year of funding from the PDF (one of only two Clinical Postdoctoral Fellowships awarded for 2010-2011).

Dr. Walsh carefully designed his fellowship clinical training to complement his scientific interests. Thus, Dr. Walsh pursued not only a formal clinical fellowship in Movement Disorders, but also a de facto fellowship in Memory Disorders. This unique training approach enabled Dr. Walsh to be facile in the scientific and clinical understanding of both Movement and Memory Disorders, and culminated in his joining faculty at UAB with dual appointment in both the Movement and Memory Disorders divisions of the Department of Neurology.

With this unique background, Dr. Walsh was an ideal candidate to join the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health as his clinical and research experience in the fields of both Movement and Memory Disorders matches the mission of the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. Thus, Dr. Walsh, an expert in applied and experimental Neurotherapeutics, joined the center as Director, Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Program.