Stephen Lisberger PhD

Stephen G. Lisberger, Ph.D., a nationally renowned investigator who studies how brain mechanisms transform visual motion into accurate eye movements, has been named chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University School of Medicine. Lisberger is currently an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a professor of Physiology at the University of California at San Francisco. “Steve is a world-class scientist and innovator who thinks broadly about neuroscience,” says Nancy Andrews, MD, Ph.D., dean of the Duke University School of Medicine. “He brings a wealth of knowledge and ideas to the Department of Neurobiology.”

Lisberger will begin working part-time at Duke in September, and will officially assume his role on January 1, 2012. "Duke has a strong tradition of excellence in neurobiology and is home to many accomplished neuroscientists across several departments,” says Lisberger, who will continue to be a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Duke. “Lisberger looks forward to bringing excellent young scientists to the Department of Neurobiology. Lisberger hopes that graduate training in Neurobiology can become a focus of the institution and will strive to help the neuroscience community achieve a level of interaction that makes the whole much greater than the sum of the parts."