Marie-Ève Tremblay, Ph.D.
📧 evetremblay@uvic.ca
Career
Dr. Marie-Ève Tremblay (she/her) has completed her B.Sc. in Sciences biologiques, as well as M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Sciences neurologiques at Université de Montreal (QC), Canada in 2000, 2003 and 2004, respectively. In 2005-2009, she completed her first post-doctoral fellowship with Dr. Ania K. Majewska in the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy and Center for Visual Sciences at the University of Rochester (NY), United States. Between 2009-2011, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the lab of Drs. Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison (WI), United States. In 2013, Marie-Ève became an Assistant Professor in the Molecular Medicine Department, Université Laval, Quebec (QC), Canada, and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in 2018, which she held until 2020. She was a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Neuroimmune plasticity in health and plasticityfrom 2017–2020. During this period, she became an Adjunct Professor at the Neurology and Neurosurgery Department of the McGill University, Montreal (QC), Canada. In 2020, Marie-Ève accepted the position of Associate professor at the School of Medical Sciences of the University of Victoria (BC), Canada, with a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Aging and Cognition. At the same time, she became an Affiliate Associate professor at the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at UBC (BC), Canada. In July of 2023, Dr. Tremblay was promoted to Full Professor at the School of Medical Sciences of the University of Victoria (BC), Canada, and was elected a Member of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in November 2023. In 2024, Dr. Marie-Ève Tremblay was awarded the Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Healthy Cognitive Aging.
Leadership & Achievements
Dr. Marie-Ève Tremblay’s work revealed that microglia, which are the brain’s immune cells, actively remodel neuronal circuits during normal physiological conditions. Her original discovery, published in PLoS Biology (Tremblay et al., 2010), was cited 1970+ times. It was recommended by Faculty, publicized twice in Nature, and presented to the public in New Scientist and Médecine/Sciences. Her follow-up work in GLIA (Tremblay et al., 2012) was also influential, with 370+ citations received. These findings stimulated the development of a new field of research investigating the roles of microglia in the healthy brain. The mini-symposium “The role of microglia in the healthy brain” that she organized and chaired at the 2011 Society for Neuroscience meeting contributed to the launch of this new field, was attended by 800+ participants, and resulted in a publication in The Journal of Neuroscience (Tremblay et al., 2011) cited 1250+ times.
As an independent investigator, she has identified fractalkine signaling as an important neuron-microglia pathway that underlies stress-induced cognitive impairment. This work resulted in a co-senior author publication in Brain Behavior and Immunity (Milior et al., 2016; 260+ citations) that was selected for the journal’s cover page. It was preceded by a review article in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience cited 360+ times (Paolicelli et al., 2014). At the same time, she identified “dark microglia” as a microglial subset rare in healthy adult mice that becomes highly prevalent upon chronic stress, aging, fractalkine signaling deficiency, and Alzheimer’s disease pathology. This work published in GLIA (Bisht et al., 2016) was cited 500+ times and notably discussed in the New Scientist. Her follow-up work further uncovered these cells following maternal immune activation (induced by viral infection), considered a main risk factor for neurodevelopmental disorders, and in Huntington’s disease pathology (Hui et al., 2018 Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience and Savage et al., 2020, Journal of Neuroinflammation, respectively cited 190+ times and 90+ times). These findings which were notably discussed in a review article in Neurobiology of Stress cited 480+ times (Bisht et al., 2018) revealed that dark microglia contribute to the pathological remodeling of neuronal circuits, across stress-induced plasticity, aging, and in various disease conditions. Expanding on these mechanisms, her team uncovered a novel integrated stress response pathway in dark microglia driving toxic lipid secretion in neurodegenerative contexts in a publication cited 90+ in Neuron (Flury et al., 2025). This continued research into dark microglia is expected to provide novel therapies specifically targeting the microglial subset implicated in synaptic loss and cognitive decline. This work is at the heart of her Tier II Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Aging and Cognition research program.
Supporting the importance of this research, Dr. Tremblay was ranked among the 1% most highly cited researchers cross-fields by Clarivate from 2021 to 2025. She was also ranked 3rd World Microglial Expert by Expertscape for papers cited between 2011 and 2021. Between 2023 and 2024, she ranked 4th for papers cited since 2013/2014. Her career goal is to become a world leader in the development of innovative therapies normalizing microglial functions upon the exposure to various environmental risk factors for disease throughout life. Her independent research funding has included so far 46 research grants, more than 10 as a principal investigator, 5+ as a co-principal investigator, 15+ as a co-investigator, and 1 as a project partner. She also holds research contracts with Med-Life Discoveries LP and the Vagus Nerve Society as a principal investigator.
Dr. Tremblay is a three-time recipient of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) grant. Most recently, she secured a 2025–2026 CFI award to acquire cutting-edge electron microscopy infrastructure, including a new EM AFS (Automatic Freeze Substitution) system and an EM ICE High-Pressure Freezing platform to support array tomography for the study of neuroimmune interactions.
Her expertise is internationally recognized. With her diverse research team which has included over 140 trainees from high school, college, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels, as well as research technicians and assistants, she has contributed to several collaborative studies in the fields of neuroscience, reproduction, nutrition, (immuno)metabolism, and immunology (e.g., published in Cell, Nature Methods, Science Translational Medicine, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Journal of Experimental Medicine, Cell Reports, Nature Neuroscience, PLoS Biology, eLife, Communications Biology, PNAS). She was invited to present her work over 200 times, as seminars, lectures at symposia, specialized courses, and meetings. She has authored over 250 publications that were cited more than 25,000 times, corresponding to an h-index of 77 and i10-index of 190+ (Google Scholar).
Updated October 2026.