Richard J. Ortiz is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Northern Illinois University and principal investigator of the Ortiz Neuroscience Lab. He studies how social behavior is passed from one generation to the next, using 3D printed brain-on-a-chip devices and ex vivo calcium imaging to keep slices of brain alive long enough to ask them questions.

His lab builds the tools it needs. Alongside microfluidic perfusion devices released as open-source designs through NIH 3D, his team — spanning psychology, biology, and engineering — is developing a cost-effective, open-source microscope capable of imaging an entire brain in 3D. That instinct to open up the “black box” of research equipment is what brought him to 71 North: a place where problems get looked at from more than one angle, and where the skills behind the work can be handed to the next student, staff member, or faculty member who wants them.