Emmett Whitaker, MD, FAAP is a fellowship-trained pediatric anesthesiologist and clinician-scientist at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine in Burlington, VT.
Dr. Whitaker completed his medical training at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2006. He then completed his anesthesiology residency and pediatric anesthesiology fellowship at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. He first
became interested in translational research during his fellowship, during which time he worked in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Lee-Summers. His fellowship project was designed to determine if exposure to commonly used anesthetic agents led to neuronal
apoptosis in neonatal piglets.
After he completed his training, Dr. Whitaker took a position at Nationwide Childrens Hospital where he opened the Department of Anesthesiology's first translational science laboratory. While at Nationwide, Dr. Whitaker used a piglet model to study the
effects of anesthesia and surgical stress on extracellular glutamate levels in the brain and their potential role in neuronal excitotoxicity. As a result of this work. Dr. Whitaker won the prestigious Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Young Investigator
Award in 2016, followed by a Society for Pediatric Anesthesia Young Investigator Grant in 2017.
Dr. Whitaker joined the Departments of Anesthesiology and Neurological Sciences at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine in March of 2018. Since then, he has built a translational neuroscience lab that focuses on the effects of early-life
insults on brain and organ perfusion in anesthetized patients. He is particularly interested in the effects of the unfavorable intrauterine environment (e.g., preeclampsia) on vascular structure and function in offspring. In 2021 Dr. Whitaker was
awarded a $250,000 Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research Mentored Research Training Grant for his project entitled "Sevoflurane Induced Cerebrovascular Dysfunction in Infant Offspring from Preeclamptic Pregnancies".
Clinically, Dr. Whitaker is a practicing pediatric anesthesiologist with a particular interest in neonatal anesthesia and infant spinal anesthesia.
American Heart Association Career Development Award 20CDA35310239 07/01/2020-06/30/2023
"Hippocampal Vascular Function in Chronic Hypertension and Post-Stroke Dementia"
PI: Abbie Chapman Johnson, Ph.D.
Mentors: Mark Nelson, Ph.D., and Marilyn
J. Cipolla, Ph.D.
CLICK HERE TO READ DR. WHITAKER'S CV