Michael S. Okun

Okun has been recognized as the top clinical-researcher at the University of Florida College of Medicine (2021) and he was also recognized in a 2015 White House ceremony by the Obama administration as a Champion of Change for Parkinson's Disease.

Okun co-founded the movement disorders program at the University of Florida in 2002 with neurosurgeon Kelly D. Foote. Okun opened his laboratory located at the McKnight Brain Institute on the University Campus. The goals of his laboratory were to uncover the underpinnings of human tic in Tourette syndrome, explore non-motor basal ganglia circuitry and to innovate neuromodulation and circuit-based treatments for human disease.

Okun and the University of Florida based group performed a series of National Institutes of Health, foundation and philanthropically funded experiments between 2002 and 2022 that resulted in the successful characterization of human tic physiology.

Okun's first book as an author was Lessons from the Bedside which this was published in 1995 as a book of prose and poetry which chronicled the medical school experience. He was interviewed for the PBS series Healing Words (2008) which focused on poetry in medicine.

Michael S. Okun (born July 5, 1971) is an American neurologist, neuroscientist and author. He is the co-founder and director of the Norman Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases at University of Florida Health and is also the chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of Florida and the Medical Director/Advisor for the Parkinson's Foundation.