Biography

Dr. Joyonna Gamble-George is an award-winning neuroscientist, artist, innovator, and entrepreneur.  She grew up on the East Coast of the United States between the states of Florida, rural Alabama on her grandparents’ farm, and Maryland.  She graduated from Eleanor Roosevelt High School – a recognized presidential school of excellence – in Greenbelt, Maryland, with merit from the school’s science and technology program.  She later attended Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, where she joined the first Greek sorority established by Black college women, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.  Dr. Gamble-George graduated cum laude from Xavier University of Louisiana with a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Biology/Pre-Medicine and was the first and only student in her graduating class to graduate with Honors in Mathematics.  Dr. Gamble-George later acquired a Master of Health Administration from the University of South Florida College of Public Health.  During her educational endeavors, she served in various leadership roles and was inducted into several honor societies. For her dedication and passion for the well being of others, Dr. Gamble-George was awarded the Female Student Leader of the Year Award and the Volunteer Standout Performance of the Year Award.

Dr. Gamble-George has served in the health care field from a clinical, administrative, and research perspective. As a health care administrator, she evaluated the daily functions of Central Alabama Veterans Healthcare System and performed strategic planning and implementation to improve customer service, Veterans benefits, and patient hospital admissions through a program sponsored by the American Hospital Association. Moreover, she is an experienced scientist with more than a decade of research expertise in the area of Alzheimer’s disease pathology, anxiety and stress-related disorders, neurotoxicity, drug addiction, and therapeutics. Her research findings have been published in several peer-reviewed journals. She has also implemented community-based initiatives in rural and impoverished communities to combat infectious and chronic diseases.

Dr. Gamble-George’s multifaceted experience, in the health care field, science-based and health-related community service activities, and internship programs that support the STEM disciplines, led her to develop a deep love and passion for science. As a result, she acquired a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Neuroscience at Vanderbilt University. Her dissertation research, which has been presented nationally and internationally in Canada, Germany, Italy, and Japan, focused on the role of the endocannabinoid system in stress-induced maladaptations in the brain, using ex vivo electrophysiological recordings and behavioral and biochemical techniques. It was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Southern Regional Education Board, United Negro College Fund, and the MERCK  Foundation, and aimed to provide valuable information to further the discovery of pharmacologic agents that can prevent or treat anxiety or stress-related disorders in humans.  Dr. Gamble-George’s dedication to the neuroscience field was awarded with the opportunity to attend the 64th Lindau Nobel Laureate (Physiology or Medicine) meeting one summer in Lindau, Germany after being selected as one of 600 young researchers on a competitive basis from approximately 20,000 applicants worldwide to attend this meeting.  During this meeting, she had the opportunity to network and meet with Nobel Laureates to discuss future research approaches to medicine.

Dr. Gamble-George’s long-term career goal is to scientifically examine how interactions between social, lifestyle, environmental, and/or hereditary factors contribute to brain disorders and other health issues in health disparity and medically underserved populations.  She plans to use animal and human cell-based models and biotechnology to determine how drug, lifestyle change, and/or social and environmental enrichment strategies can alleviate negative consequences in the brain and the body.  To achieve her long-term goal, Dr. Gamble-George founded or co-founded several startup companies, including SciX, LLC, a biotech IoT application development company.  SciX, LLC was dedicated to creating science-based and health-related mobile, wearable applications and devices for monitoring and responding to risk factors responsible for various health conditions, human behaviors, and neuro-sensory thresholds in order to predict, prevent, and manage life altering events. She currently advises other startups, including a Web3 social enterprise company that is developing a mobile, gamified goal achievement platform rooted in behavioral science and serves as their Chief Executive Officer (CEO). She also served as a machine learning engineer and entrepreneurial research fellow for an environmental consulting startup company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to make predictions about climate change and its impacts on indigenous communities. Dr. Gamble-George’s business acumen was honored with the Entrepreneur of the Year Award and the Tampa Bay Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 award.

To learn more about Dr. Gamble-George, check out her CV and Electronic Press Kit.