Paul Rapp Ph.D

Education

B.S. University of Illinois, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Major: Physiology, Minor; Chemistry
B.S. University of Illinois, College of Engineering, Major: Engineering Physics
Ph.D. Cambridge University, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

Biography

Paul Rapp attended the University of Illinois as a James Scholar. He received a Bachelors degree in Physiology (minor in Chemistry, Summa cum Laude) and a second Bachelors degree in Engineering Physics (Summa cum Laude) in 1972. He then attended Cambridge University as a Churchill Scholar and received his Ph.D. in 1975. His doctoral work, under the supervision of Professor Sir James Lighthill, was conducted in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. Following graduation he was elected to a Fellowship at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge University. During this period he continued teaching in the Faculty of Mathematics and performed combined theoretical and experimental work in collaboration with Professor Sir Michael Berridge in the Invertebrate Chemistry and Physiology Unit at Cambridge. This work led to the publication of the calcium-cyclic nucleotide oscillator hypothesis. He joined the faculty of the Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1979.

At present, Rapp is a Professor of Military and Emergency Medicine at the Uniformed Services University and Director of the Traumatic Injury Research Program. He also holds a secondary appointment as a Professor of Medical and Clinical Psychology. Previously he was a Professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine (the successor organization to the Medical College of Pennsylvania) and Director of Research at the Clinical Research Center at Norristown State Psychiatric Hospital.

Professor Rapp was a Candidate at the Philadelphia School of Psychoanalysis and has practiced as a psychotherapist/psychoanalyst at the Philadelphia Consultation Center.

He is a past editor of Physica, and has served on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, Chaos and Complexity Letters, and Cognitive Neurodynamics. Past honors include a Certificate of Commendation from the Central Intelligence Agency for “significant contributions to the mission of the Office of Research and Development.”

Career Highlights: Positions, Projects, Deployements, Awards and Additional Publications

Edmund James Scholar, University of Illinois, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Edmund James Scholar, University of Illinois, College of Engineering

Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Tau

Churchill Scholar to Cambridge University

Fellow Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Unversity

Certificate of Commendation, Central Intelligence Agency for Significant Contributions to the Mission of the Office of Research and Development

Representative Bibliography

Rapp, P.E. and Gilpin, A.M.K. (2025). Biomarkers in clinical practice: opportunities and challenges. Medical Research Archives (European Society of Medicine) Volume 13, Issue 1, January 2025

Rapp, P.E., Cellucci, C.J., Gilpin, C.E. and Darmon, D.M. (2023). Approximate continuous time measures of information movement in extended complex networks. Computer Sciences and Mathematics Forum. 7: 3.

Kim, S., Adams, J.NM., Chappel-Farley, M.G., Keator, D., Janeck, J., Taylor, L., Mikhail, A., McMillan, L., Rapp, P.E., Michael, M.A. (2023). Examining the diagnostic value of the mnemonic discrimination task for predicting cognition and amyloid-beta status. Neuropsychologica. 191: 108727

Barbosa, D.A.N., Gattas, S., Salgado, J.S., Kuijper, F.M., Wang, A.R., Huang, Y., , B., Leuze, C., Luczak, A., Rapp, P., Malenka, R.C., Miller, K.J., Heifets, B.D., Bohon, C., McNab, J.A., Halpern, C.H. (2023). An orexigenic subnetwork within the human hippocampus. Nature, 621: 381.

Gattas, S., Larson, M.S., Mnatsakanyan, L., Sen-Gupta, I., Vadera, S., Swindlehurst, L., Rapp, P.E., Lin, J.J., and Yassa, M.A. (2023). Theta-mediated hippocampal-neocortical interactions underlie pattern separation in humans. Nature Communications. 14: 8505

Rapp, P.E., Cellucci, C., Darmon, D. and Keyser, D. (2022). Cautionary observations concerning the introduction of psychophysiological biomarkers into neuropsychiatric practice. Psychiatry International 3(2), 181-205. https://doi.org/10.3390/psychiatryint3020015.

Darmon, D., Watanabe, T., Cellucci, C. and Rapp, P.E. (2021). On the operational utility of measures of multichannel EEGs. Entropy, 23,1434.

Killian, J.M., Radin, R.M., Gardner, C.L., Kasuske, L., Bashirelahi, K., Nathan, D., Keyser, D.O., Cellucci, C.J., Darmon, D. and Rapp, P.E. (2021). Alternative devices for heart rate variability measures: a comparative test-retest reliability study. Behavioral Sciences. 11, 68.

Trongnetrpunya, A., Rapp, P.E., Wang, C, Darmon, D., Costanzo, M.E., Nathan, D.E., Roy, M.J., Keyser, D.O. (2019). Single-trial mechanisms underlying changes in averaged P300 ERP amplitude and latency in military service members after combat deployment. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Volume 13, Article 377.