Rate My Professor Daniel Harrison

Daniel M. Harrison, MD, is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, where he has been on faculty since 2015. Previously, he served on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 2010 to 2015. In his current role, Dr. Harrison holds the administrative title of Director of the Division of Neuro-Immunology & Multiple Sclerosis and directs the University of Maryland Center for Multiple Sclerosis. He also serves as Fellowship Director for the Multiple Sclerosis Centers of Excellence (MSCoE)-East. Dr. Harrison received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He completed his neurology residency at Columbia University Medical Center, serving as chief resident, followed by a fellowship in neuroimmunology and neuroinfectious diseases at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is board certified in neurology by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

Dr. Harrison directs an active research program focused on the development and validation of novel neuroimaging techniques for multiple sclerosis (MS), including ultra-high-field 7-tesla MRI to visualize cortical pathology, neurodegeneration, and meningeal inflammation not detectable on standard MRI. His laboratory explores retinal imaging methods such as adaptive optics optical coherence tomography and machine learning-based approaches for MRI analysis and disability prediction in MS. He is a principal investigator in the UM Multiple Sclerosis Neuroimaging Biomarker Research Group and an active participant in the Maryland Center for MS clinical trials program. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Department of Defense, and industry grants. Key publications include 'Longitudinal changes in diffusion-tensor-based quantitative MRI in multiple sclerosis' (Neurology, 2011), 'Thalamic Lesions in multiple sclerosis by 7T MRI: clinical implications and relationship to cortical pathology' (Multiple Sclerosis, 2014), 'Association of cortical lesion burden on 7T MRI with cognition and disability in multiple sclerosis' (JAMA Neurology, 2015), 'Blood-brain barrier breakdown in non-enhancing multiple sclerosis lesions detected by 7-Tesla MP2RAGE ΔT1 mapping' (PLoS One, 2021), and 'Meningeal contrast enhancement in multiple sclerosis: assessment of field strength, acquisition delay, and clinical relevance' (PLoS One, 2024). Dr. Harrison specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune disorders of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves.