Neuroscience grad turned builder in St. Petersburg, Florida, usually happiest somewhere above treeline or below the surface.
I'm Theodore Rex Walrond, though almost everyone calls me Rex. I studied behavioral and cognitive neuroscience at the University of Florida, where I got hooked on research: working through hundreds of studies on how brain bleeds relate to Alzheimer's disease, and tracking COVID-19 drug candidates during the pandemic.
From there I moved toward the business side of healthcare and completed graduate coursework in finance at the University of Notre Dame. Today I'm focused on building an early-stage venture in consumer health.
Home base is St. Petersburg, on Tampa Bay. When I'm not working, I'm usually planning the next trip, out on the water, or over-analyzing my sleep data.
Not a resume, just the parts that shaped how I think.
At UF's McKnight Brain Institute I synthesized 300+ studies on links between subarachnoid hemorrhage and Alzheimer's. Before that, a summer at Romark Laboratories building dashboards for 25+ COVID-19 drug candidates.
As an Impact Partner with the American Parkinson Disease Association, I led a monthly support group of 15–20 people: planning sessions, bringing in guest speakers, and presenting.
I'm putting my research background and finance training to work on an early-stage consumer health venture. More to share down the road.
The trips that matter most to me, drawn to scale by high point. Full trip reports live in my field notes.
From 2020 to 2023 I helped teach scuba courses for UF's Scientific Diving Program, from Open Water through Master Diver: in-water skills, out-of-water skills, and classroom lectures on dive planning, physics and physiology. Most of my diving has been in Florida's freshwater springs.
A plain-language look at the question I worked on at UF's McKnight Brain Institute: whether a subarachnoid hemorrhage can raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease years later.
Kearsarge Pass, Forester Pass and the climb to Trail Crest: the most sustained time at altitude of any trip I've done.
Several days south from Tuolumne on the John Muir Trail, with detours up Half Dome's cables and along the granite spine of Clouds Rest.
Profiles, publications and my second site, theodorewalrond.com.