Daniel Mark Wolpert
FRS FMedSci (born 8 September 1963)
is a British
medical doctor
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
,
neuroscientist and engineer, who has made important contributions in
computational biology
Computational biology refers to the use of data analysis, mathematical modeling and computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer science, biology, and big data, the field also has fo ...
. He was Professor of Engineering at the
University of Cambridge from 2005, and also became the
Royal Society Noreen Murray Research Professorship in Neurobiology from 2013.
He is now Professor of Neurobiology at
Columbia University.
Early life and education
Wolpert was educated at the
Hall School and
Westminster School.
He went on to the University of Cambridge to study mathematics, but after only a year he shifted to medicine, as it seemed to him "that medics were having much more fun than mathematicians." He completed a Bachelor of Arts in medical sciences in 1985, then completed his
Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (BM BCh) in 1988, and PhD in
physiology in 1992 from the
University of Oxford.
Career
Wolpert pursued computational neuroscience as
postdoctoral researcher (1992–1994) and McDonnell-Pew Fellow (1994–1995) in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Daniel Wolpert on his qualification as medical doctor worked as Medical
House officer in Oxford, in 1988. After completion of his research in 1995, he joined the faculty of Sobell Department of Neurophysiology, Institute of Neurology,
University College London, as a Lecturer. He became Reader in Motor Neuroscience in 1999, and full Professor in 2002. He was appointed to Professor of Engineering at the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, in 2005. In 2013, he also became the Royal Society Noreen Murray Research Professorship in Neurobiology.
[ In 2018, he moved to Columbia University to become Professor of Neurobiology.
]
Awards and honours
Wolpert was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2012, his nomination reads Other awards include:
*1982–1985 Thomas Cannon Brooke's Scholarship for Mathematics, Trinity Hall, Cambridge
*1989–1992 Senior Scholarship, Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College (formally, The College of the Blessed Mary and All Saints, Lincoln) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, the ...
*1992–1995 Fulbright Scholarship
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
*2004 Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci)
*2005 Swartz foundation Mind-Brain Lecture, Stony Brook University
Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...
*2005 Royal Society Francis Crick Prize Lecture
*2005 Professorial Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge
*2007 Alice and Joseph Brooks International Lecture, Harvard University
*2007 Annual Cognitive Science Lecture, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...
*2009 Fred Kavli Distinguished International Scientist Lecture, Society for Neuroscience
*2010 Golden Brain Award
The Golden Brain Award is an international science award in the field of neuroscience. It is given by the Berkeley-based Minerva Foundation every year since 1985. The foundation specifically aims at fundamental contributions to research in visio ...
of the Minerva Foundation
*2012 Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)
*2012 Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award (for seven years)
*2013 Royal Society Noreen Murray Research Professorship in Neurobiology
Personal life
Wolpert is the son of South-African born developmental and evolutionary biologist Lewis Wolpert, and his wife Elizabeth (née Brownstein).
Since 1990, Wolpert has been married to Mary Anne Shorrock; they have two daughters.
References
External links
Cambridge Research Systems Ltd.
Think 2012 lecture
Smart Moves: Daniel Wolpert, Motor Control and the Brain
13th Queen Square Symposium: Interview with Professor Daniel Wolpert
Golden Brain archive at Minerva Foundation
Brief biography at The Conversation
Neurotree
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolpert, Daniel
20th-century British biologists
21st-century British biologists
British neuroscientists
Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford
Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
Fellows of the Royal Society
English Jews
1963 births
Living people
Professors of engineering (Cambridge, 1875)
British bioengineers
Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Alumni of Lincoln College, Oxford
Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom)
British physiologists
Academics of University College London
People from Hampstead