Main Menu (Mobile)- Block

Main Menu - Block

Nelson Spruston

people_blocks-people_blocks_biography | block

Biography

As Chief of Janelia Scientific Operations and Programs, Spruston oversees a team that coordinates a number of science-related operations at Janelia, including recruitment and review of Group Leaders and Fellows (Zarixia Zavala-Ruiz), Conferences Programs (Janine Stevens), the Visiting Scientist Program (Zavala-Ruiz), Student and Postdoctoral Programs (Erik Snapp), Shared Support Teams (Reed George), Gene-Targeting and Transgenics (Caiying Guo), and Project Teams (Wyatt Korff).

Spruston’s lab explores the role of the hippocampus in learning and memory, with an emphasis on the properties of a diverse collection of cell types and how they come together to form a circuit that mediates the learning and recall of episodic memories.

Spruston obtained a B.Sc. degree in Physiology from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada (1981-85) and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, USA (1985-91). He did postdoctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany (1992-95) and then spent 16 years on the faculty at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, USA (1995-2011) before moving to Janelia.

node:field_education | entity_field

Education

BS, Physiology, University of British Columbia
PhD, Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine
node:field_award | entity_field

Awards

NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award, Brain and Behavior Foundation
National Science Foundation Career Award
Cajal Club
Klingenstein Fellowship Award in the Neurosciences
node:field_membership | entity_field

Memberships

American Association for the Advancement of Science (Fellow)
Society for Neuroscience
American Physiological Society