David Porta Ph.D.
David J. Porta has a Ph.D. in Anatomical Sciences and Neurobiology from the University of Louisville School Medicine. He is currently a tenured, full professor at Bellarmine University in Louisville, KY where he has taught A & P, Marine Biology, and Gross Anatomy over the last 33 years. He also spent 19 of those years teaching Gross and Neuroanatomy at the University of Louisville Schools of Medicine and Dentistry. He loves teaching and has been recognized with 6 University-wide Teacher of the Year awards. He holds memberships in 8 scientific organizations but is most active in the AACA which he joined in 1997 and has only missed one annual meeting since. At those meetings, he had 12 platform and 10 poster presentations. He has served on numerous committees and as Meeting Manager, Program Secretary, and Councilor. He also hosted a joint regional meeting of the AACA and HAPS, served as a Guest Editor for a special issue of Clinical Anatomy on Cadaver Use in Trauma Research, and continues to review meeting abstracts and for the journal.
His research is in Anatomy as well as the area of Trauma Biomechanics. He has presented 91 times at scientific conferences, published 23 peer-reviewed articles, 5 book chapters, and 51 abstracts. He has also shared his work by giving over 400 invited lectures. This work, along with his training in Accident Reconstruction and as an Emergency Medical Technician, has led to his serving as a Forensic Expert since 1992 on over 1,200 legal cases involving injury analysis. In 2011, Dr. Sherrie Downey invited him to consult with her for pharmaceutical companies and he has worked hundreds of cadaver-based programs providing advanced toxin injection training for physicians treating patients with Spasticity, Cervical Dystonia, and Chronic Migraine.
Of all of his accomplishments, he is most proud that he somehow convinced Nancy Crane to become his wife and together they were blessed with 2 amazing daughters- Dr. Emily Porta-Miller, Ph.D. and Dr. Layne Porta. Ph.D.
