HWNI Faculty

Image from Theresa Puthussery's lab showing an immunostained macaque retina featured on the April 4, 2018 cover of the Journal of Neuroscience.

Our community includes over 70 faculty members from over many academic departments who deepen our understanding of the brain and the rest of the nervous system through neurotechnology innovation and original research. Explore the research interests of Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute faculty below, and click on their name for more information.

Name	Job title	Department	Role	Research interests	Email
Hillel Adesnik	Associate Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Plasticity, connectivity, and dynamics of neural networks	hadesnik@berkeley.edu
Scott Baraban	Adjunct Professor	HWNI	Faculty	Translational epilepsy research with a focus on interneurons, genetic forms of epilepsy, zebrafish and drug discovery.	scott.baraban@ucsf.edu
Helen Bateup	Associate Professor	Neuroscience, Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Molecular basis of synapse and circuit changes associated with epilepsy and autism.	bateup@berkeley.edu
Diana Bautista	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Molecular mechanisms underlying the sensations of itch, touch and pain.	dbautista@berkeley.edu
Annaliese Beery	Associate Professor	Neuroscience, Integrative Biology	Faculty	Mechanisms supporting affiliative social behavior between peers; neuroendocrinology of complex behavior.	abeery@berkeley.edu
Eric Betzig	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology, Physics	Faculty	Development of new tools for imaging and image analysis to enable biological discovery	ebcal@berkeley.edu
Sonia Bishop	Adjunct Associate Professor	HWNI	Faculty	Neural basis of attention, emotion and anxiety. Individual differences in cognitive control and emotional responsivity.	sbishop@berkeley.edu
Kristofer Bouchard	Adjunct Assistant Professor	HWNI	Faculty	Functional organization and dynamic coordination of sensorimotor networks underlying learned, skilled behaviors.	kristofer.bouchard@gmail.com
Stephen Brohawn	Associate Professor	Neuroscience, Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Molecular basis of sensory transduction and electrical signaling, especially mechanosensation.	brohawn@berkeley.edu
Silvia Bunge	Professor	HWNI, Psychology	Faculty	Neural mechanisms, development and plasticity of higher cognitive functions in humans.	sbunge@berkeley.edu
Anne Collins	Associate Professor	Psychology	Faculty	Computational modeling of human learning, decision-making and executive functions.	annecollins@berkeley.edu
Emily Cooper	Assistant Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Computational modeling of visual perception.	emilycooper@berkeley.edu
Mark D’Esposito	Distinguished Professor	HWNI, Psychology	Faculty	Neural basis of high-level cognitive processes such as working memory and executive control.	despo@berkeley.edu
Yang Dan	Professor, Pivotal Life Sciences Chancellor's Chair in Neuroscience	Neuroscience	Faculty	Neural circuits controlling sleep and mechanisms of executive control.	ydan@berkeley.edu
Michael DeWeese	Professor	Neuroscience, Physics	Faculty	Neural mechanisms underlying auditory processing and selective attention in the cerebral cortex and artificial neural networks.	deweese@berkeley.edu
Andrew Dillin	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Genetic and molecular mechanisms regulating aging and aging-related disease.	dillin@berkeley.edu
Gül Dölen	Professor	Neuroscience, Psychology	Faculty	Psychedelics; Critical Periods; Octopus; Social Behaviors; Evolution; Synaptic Plasticity; Extracellular Matrix; Oxytocin, Stroke; Fragile X; Autism; PTSD; Addiction	gul@berkeley.edu
David Feinberg	Acting Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	MRI technology development, mapping columnar and visual circuitry, modeling neurovascular coupling.	david.feinberg@advancedmri.com
Daniel Feldman	Professor, Coates Family Endowed Chair in Neuroscience	Neuroscience	Faculty	Sensory processing and plasticity in the somatosensory cortex.	dfeldman@berkeley.edu
Marla Feller	Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Functional development and organization of neural circuits in the retina.	mfeller@berkeley.edu
Yvette Fisher	Assistant Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Flexibility of neural circuits for spatial navigation.	yfisher@berkeley.edu
John Flannery	Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Gene therapies for inherited retinal degenerations.	flannery@berkeley.edu
David Foster	Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Encoding of spatial memory and navigation toward rewards by neural ensembles in the hippocampus.	davidfoster@berkeley.edu
Meng-meng Fu	Assistant Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Our lab goal is to understand glial function at the animal, cell, and molecular level in order to elucidate mechanisms of normal development and disease progression.	mengmengfu@berkeley.edu
Jack Gallant	Professor, Co-director of the Brain Imaging Center (BIC)	Neuroscience	Faculty	Identifying cortical maps to discover how the brain represents information about the world and its own mental states.	gallant@berkeley.edu
Andrea Gomez	Assistant Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Instructive cues for neural form and function.	gomez@berkeley.edu
Corey Goodman	Adjunct Professor	HWNI	Faculty	Translation of biomedical discoveries into therapeutics for human health.	goodman@berkeley.edu
Lin He	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Cilia biology, choroid plexus function in cerebrospinal fluid production.	lhe@berkeley.edu
Ming Hsu	Associate Professor	Haas School of Business	Faculty	Neural basis of economic and consumer decision-making.	mhsu@haas.berkeley.edu
James Hurley	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Structural and biophysical basis of endomembrane mechanisms that contribute to neurodegenerative diseases.	jimhurley@berkeley.edu
Ehud Isacoff	Professor, Evan Rauch Chair in Neuroscience, Director of HWNI, Co-Director of The Weill Neurohub	Neuroscience, Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Mechanisms of ion channel function, synapse development, plasticity and neural circuit function.	ehud@berkeley.edu
Richard Ivry	Distinguished Professor	Neuroscience, Psychology	Faculty	Cognition and action, with an emphasis on how people select actions, learn skills, and produce coordinated movements.	ivry@berkeley.edu
William Jagust	Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Anatomic, biochemical, and neurochemical bases of brain aging and dementia.	jagust@berkeley.edu
Na Ji	Professor	Neuroscience, Physics	Faculty	Novel imaging methods to understand the brain.	jina@berkeley.edu
Daniela Kaufer	Professor	Neuroscience, Integrative Biology	Faculty	Molecular mechanisms of brain plasticity in response to stress and neurological insults.	danielak@berkeley.edu
Preeya Khanna	Assistant Professor	Neuroscience, Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences	Faculty	Neural basis of dexterous motor skills, neurotechnology for restoring and rehabilitating movement.	pkhanna@berkeley.edu
Stanley Klein	Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Psychophysical investigation of of visual processing and the role of perceptual learning, attention and binocular interactions.	sklein@berkeley.edu
Bob Knight	Professor of the Graduate School	Psychology	Faculty	Neural coding underlying goal-directed behavior and development of brain-machine interfaces for motor and language prostheses.	rtknight@berkeley.edu
Richard Kramer	Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Novel chemical reagents for non-invasive optical sensing and manipulation of ion channels and synapses.	rhkramer@berkeley.edu
Lance Kriegsfeld	Professor	Neuroscience, Psychology	Faculty	Brain and endocrine regulation of circadian rhythms	Kriegsfeld@berkeley.edu
Stephan Lammel	Associate Professor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Midbrain dopamine circuits in reward-based behaviors and pathological changes in addiction, depression and schizophrenia.	lammel@berkeley.edu
Markita Landry	Associate Professor	Neuroscience, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	Faculty	Exploiting nanomaterials to probe and characterize complex biological systems at the nano-scale; nanosensors for brain chemistry.	landry@berkeley.edu
Samantha Lewis	Assistant Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Mitochondrial biogenesis, mitochondrial genome inheritance, organelle assembly, DNA replication, cell metabolism, interactions between membrane-bound organelles.	samlewis@berkeley.edu
Lexin Li	Professor	School of Public Health	Faculty	Statistical neuroimaging analysis, brain connectivity analysis, imaging causal inference, multimodal and longitudinal imaging analysis, and imaging tensor regression.	lexinli@berkeley.edu
Chunlei Liu	Associate Professor, Co-director of the Brain Imaging Center (BIC)	HWNI, Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences	Faculty	MRI technology development for the study of neural circuits and modulation.	chunlei.liu@eecs.berkeley.edu
Ellen Lumpkin	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Understanding force transduction mechanisms that initiate the senses of touch and pain.	lumpkin@berkeley.edu
Evan Miller	Associate Professor	Chemistry, Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Development and application of molecular tools for studying neuroscience.	evanwmiller@berkeley.edu
Bruno Olshausen	Professor, Director of the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience (RCTN)	Neuroscience, Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Computational models of sensory coding and visual perception.	baolshausen@berkeley.edu
James Olzmann	Associate Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology, Nutritional Sciences & Toxicology	Faculty	Cellular lipid homeostasis, oxidative lipid damage and cell death, neurodegeneration.	olzmann@berkeley.edu
Steven Piantadosi	Associate Professor, Co-director of the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Science (ICBS)	Psychology	Faculty	Understanding what computational processes support language acquisition, math learning, and general cognition.	spiantado@gmail.com
Teresa Puthussery	Assistant Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Processing of visual signals in the healthy and diseased retina.	tpu@berkeley.edu
Michael Rapé	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Molecular mechanisms of cell fate decisions in development and disease.	mrape@berkeley.edu
Austin Roorda	Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Development of adaptive optics to track, measure, and correct the eye's imperfections.	aroorda@berkeley.edu
Kaoru Saijo	Assistant Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Microglial cell maintenance of homeostasis in the brain and sex dimorphism in diseases.	ksaijo@berkeley.edu
David Schaffer	Professor	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	Faculty	Engineering stem cell and gene therapeutics.	schaffer@berkeley.edu
Randy Schekman	Professor	Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	Membrane assembly, vesicular transport, and membrane fusion among organelles of the secretory pathway.	schekman@berkeley.edu
Karthik Shekhar	Assistant Professor	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	Faculty	Single-cell genomics and statistical inference.	kshekhar@berkeley.edu
Michael Silver	Professor, Director of the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics (BCSP)	Neuroscience, Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Neurophysiological and neurochemical substrates of human visual perception, attention, and learning.	masilver@berkeley.edu
Friedrich Sommer	Adjunct	HWNI	Faculty	Theoretical principles of learning and perception	fsommer@berkeley.edu
Mark Tanouye	Professor	Environmental Science, Policy & Management	Faculty	Novel genetic approaches to study the causes of epilepsy and other nervous system disorders.	tanouye@berkeley.edu
Rowland Taylor	Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	Structure and function of neural circuits in the retina
Frédéric Theunissen	Professor, Director of the Neuroscience PhD Program	Neuroscience	Faculty	Perception of complex sounds.	theunissen@berkeley.edu
Doris Tsao	Professor, Nan Fung Life Sciences Faculty Scholar	Neuroscience	Faculty	Understanding how the brain builds a model of the visual world	dortsao@berkeley.edu
Matthew Walker	Professor	Psychology	Faculty	The impact of sleep on human health and disease	mpwalker@berkeley.edu
Joni Wallis	Professor, Equity Advisor	Neuroscience	Faculty	Neuronal mechanisms underlying high-level cognitive and behavioral processes	wallis@berkeley.edu
Kevin Weiner	Associate Professor	Neuroscience, Psychology	Faculty	Models to explain how brain structure and function contribute to measurable behaviors (e.g. face perception)	kweiner@berkeley.edu
Noah Whiteman	Professor	Integrative Biology, Molecular & Cell Biology	Faculty	The role of dietary toxins in shaping the evolution of the nervous system and implications for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders	whiteman@berkeley.edu
David Whitney	Professor	Psychology	Faculty	Visual perception and attention.	dwhitney@berkeley.edu
Linda Wilbrecht	Professor	Neuroscience, Psychology	Faculty	Experience dependent plasticity and the development of circuits involved in value based decision making.	wilbrecht@berkeley.edu
Ke Xu	Associate Professor	Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering	Faculty	Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy to interrogate cellular processes at the nanoscale.	xuk@berkeley.edu
Michael Yartsev	Associate Professor	Neuroscience, Bioengineering	Faculty	Neural basis of complex spatial and acoustic behaviors.	myartsev@berkeley.edu
Jacob Yates	Assistant Professor	Wertheim School of Optometry & Vision Science	Faculty	How populations of neurons in cortex encode the visual world, using statistical and machine learning models to understand neural activity and human perception, how information generated by eye movements is utilized by cortical circuits.	yates@berkeley.edu