Dennis Kolson, MD, PhD graduated from the Pennsylvania State University in 1977, and completed his MS, MD, and PhD degrees from the University of Pittsburgh (1985). He completed his Neurology residency at Duke University (1989) and then moved to Penn where he completed his post-doctoral/fellowship training in Neurovirology. He joined the Penn faculty in 1992 and is now a tenured Professor of Neurology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Microbiology. He is a member of the Neuroscience and Cellular & Molecular Biology (Microbiology, Virology & Parasitology/MVP program) graduate groups at Penn. He served as past Chair of the Penn MVP admissions committee, past regular member of the NIH HIV Neuropathogensis study section, and he currently serves several national and international advisory roles, including the Steering Committee of the NIH National NeuroAIDS Tissue Consortium and the Scientific Program Committee of the International Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. He currently serves as the co-Director of the Penn Training in Neurovirology T32 training grant. He is a member of the Penn MSTP Executive and Steering Committees.

Dennis's research interests are in the roles for inflammation and immune activation in neurodegeneration, with one area of focus on immunodeficiency viruses (HIV and simian immunodeficiency virus/SIV). He has trained PhD and MD-PhD students in his lab, several of who have been awarded a Ruth L. Kirschtein (F30, F31) National Research Service Award (NRSA) to support their own research training. He is active in teaching and training graduate and medical students through lecturing in the Brain & Behavior Module of the Medical School Core Curriculum and in the Microbiology MVP graduate course curriculum. In addition, Dennis mentors MSTP students in their Neurology clinical clerkships by having them attend his weekly multiple sclerosis outpatient clinic, and in his role as an Attending Neurologist on the Neurology inpatient and consulting services at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.