Dr. Crystal Ripplinger is Professor and Chair of the Department of Physiology & Biophysics at the University of California, Irvine, USA. She received her BS degree in Electrical Engineering from North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota. She subsequently earned her MS and PhD degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Dr. Ripplinger began her independent scientific career at the University of California, Davis, was promoted to Professor in 2020, and transferred to UC Irvine in 2026 to assume the role of Department Chair. Dr. Ripplinger's research focusses on the role of the autonomic nervous system in influencing cardiac electrophysiology and contributing to ventricular arrhythmias. Her work uses state-of-the-art optical imaging and neuro-modulatory approaches in animal models of cardiovascular disease to assess the impact of autonomic input to the heart. Dr. Ripplinger is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, a Fellow of the Heart Rhythm Society, and a long-standing Associate Editor at the American Journal of Physiology Heart & Circulatory Physiology, where she has championed the inclusion of sex and gender in cardiovascular research. Her laboratory has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with additional funding from the American Heart Association and the University of California Office of the President. Dr. Ripplinger is passionate about mentorship, and received the 2024 UC Davis Dean’s Award for Excellence in Mentoring.
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