Richard L. Huganir

Dr. Richard Huganir is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Director of the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and is the Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Brain Science Institute.  Dr. Huganir received his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology from Cornell University in 1982 where he performed his thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Efraim Racker.  He was a postdoctoral fellow with the Nobel Laureate, Dr. Paul Greengard, at Yale University School of Medicine from 1982-1984. Dr. Huganir then moved to the Rockefeller University where he was an Assistant Professor of Molecular and Cellular Neurobiology from 1984-1988. Dr. Huganir moved to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1988 as an Associate Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and an Associate Professor in the Department of Neuroscience. Dr. Huganir was an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1988-2014. Dr. Huganir became the Director or the Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience in 2006.

Dr. Huganir’s career has focused on synapses, the connections between nerve cells, in the brain. Dr. Huganir’s studies have shown that regulation of receptor function is a major mechanism underlying modulation of neuronal excitability and connectivity in the brain and is critical for many higher brain processes, including learning and memory, and is a major determinant of behavior. Moreover, dysregulation of these mechanisms underlie many neurological and psychiatric diseases including Alzheimer’s, ALS, schizophrenia, autism, intellectual disability, PTSD as well as in chronic pain and drug addiction. Dr. Huganir is currently the Chair of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research Scientific Advisory Committee and a recent member of the NIMH Council and the NIH BRAIN Multi-Council Working Group. Dr. Huganir is the past the President of the Society for Neuroscience and has served as Treasurer of the Society for Neuroscience. He has received the Young Investigator Award and the Julius Axelrod Award from the Society for Neuroscience, the Santiago Grisolia Award, the Goldman-Rakic Award, the Edward M. Scolnick Prize and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.