Principal Investigator
David Kleinfeld, Ph.D.
(In matters of style,
swim with the current.
In matters of principle,
stand like a rock.*)
(To be creative you've
got to be unsociable and
tight-assed. ... You're
self-sufficient and you
stay focused.**)
(Be so good they can’t
ignore you.***)
Education
| 1984 | The Neurobiology Summer School, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
| 1984 | Doctor of Philosophy in Physics, University of California at San Diego. Dissertation: On the Dynamics of Electron Transfer in Photosynthetic Reaction Centers (with the late Prof. George Feher). |
| 1977 | Master of Science, Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. |
| 1976 | Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (High Honors), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Senior Thesis: Growth of Ionization Tracts in Pulsed Microwave Fields. |
| 1971 | Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn, NY. |
Primary Academic Position
| 2014 onward | Distinguished Professor, UCSD |
| 2011 onward | Professor of Neurobiology, UCSD. |
| 1998 onward | Professor of Physics, UCSD. |
| 1996 - 1998 | Associate Professor of Physics, UCSD. |
| 1984 - 1985 | Post-doctoral Fellow, UCSD. |
Secondary Academic Positions
| 2021 - 2026 | Adjunct Faculty, Department of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), South Korea. |
| 2019 - 2027 | Adjunct Faculty, The Salk Institute, La Jolla. |
| 2016 onward | Affiliated Faculty, Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, UCSD. |
| 2014 - 2029 | Dr. George Feher Experimental Biophysics Endowed Chair, UCSD. |
| 2008 onward | Senior Fellow, Crick-Jacobs Center for Theoretical & Computational Biology, The Salk Institute, La Jolla. |
| 1997 onward | Affiliated Faculty, Graduate Neurosciences Program, UCSD.
(Head of Computational Neuroscience Specialization, 2014 to present) |
Industrial Positions
| 2019-2023 | Scientific Advisory Board, Clarapath, NYC. |
| 1986 - 1995 | Member of the Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. |
| 1985 | Postdoctoral Member of the Technical Staff, AT&T Bell Laboratories. |
| 1974 | Accelerator Division (w/ Dr. Robert L Kustom), Argonne National Laboratories. |
Postgraduate School Positions
| 2018 - 2019 | Faculty, "Building and Mining Brain Cell Atlases and Connectomes", Cold Spring Harbor Asia, Suzhou. |
| 2017 | Faculty, "The Neural Basis of Brain Information Processing and Behavior: Synapses, Cells, Circuits", Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research, Beijing. |
| 2017 | Faculty, "Neural Data Analysis", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, NY. |
| 2017 | Faculty, "Transylvanian Experimental Neuroscience Summer School", Pike Lake, Romania. |
| 2016, 2021 | Faculty, "Workshop on Computational Brain Research", Center for Computational Brain Research, IIT Madras, India. |
| 2013 | Faculty, "Vasculata", North American Vascular Biology Organization training camp, San Diego, CA. |
| 2012, 2015 | Faculty, "Frontiers in Neurophotonics Summer School", Quebec City, Canada. |
| 2011 | Faculty, "Circuits and Connectivity", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, NY. |
| 2010 | Faculty, "Circuit and Molecular Architecture of the Vertebrate Brain" Summer Workshop, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. |
| 2008 | Faculty, Society for Neuroscience Short Course on "Neural Signal Processing: Quantitative Analysis of Neural Activity", DC. |
| 2007 | Visiting faculty, "Fifth Summer School on Computational Neuroscience", Goettingen. |
| 2007 - 2012 | Co-Director, "Neuroinformatics Summer School" (with Prof. Emery Brown and Dr. Partha Mitra), Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
| 2003 - 2007 | Co-Director, "Imaging Structure & Function in the Nervous System" Summer School (with Profs. Florian Engert, Fritjof Helmchen, Mark Huebener, Timothy Murphy and Jack Waters), Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. |
| 2003, 2004, 2008 - 2015 |
Visiting Faculty, "Methods in Computational Neuroscience" Summer School, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
| 2003 | Lecturer, Summer School in Theoretical Physics, Les Houches, France (Prof. David Golomb covered). |
| 2002 - 2006 | Faculty and Co-Founder (with Prof. Emery Brown and Dr. Partha Mitra), "Neuroinformatics Summer School", Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
| 2001 | Co-organizer, “Pedagogical Workshop on Neural Networks” (w/ Profs. Sebastian Seung & Misha Tsodyks), Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UC Santa Barbara. |
| 2000 | Lecturer, “Neurobiology of the Leech”, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
| 1998 - 2002, 2008, 2011, 2013 |
Visiting Faculty, "Imaging Structure & Function in the Nervous System", Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, NY. |
| 1993 - 1997 | Co-Director, "Methods in Computational Neuroscience" Summer School, (with Prof. David Tank), Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
Honors
| 2020 | UCSD Academic Senate Distinguished Research Award in Science & Engineering |
| 2016 | NIH / NINDS Research Program Award | 2015 | Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences |
| 2012 | Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| 2010 | NIH Director's Pioneer Award |
| 1999 | David and Lucile Packard Foundation Interdisciplinary Science Award |
| 1976 | Tau Beta Pi Engineering Honor Society |
Named/Profiled Lectures
| 2023 | Plenary Lecture, SPIE International, Jeju |
| 2022 | Muldoon Distinguished Lectureship, Augusta University |
| 2019 | Plenary Lecture, European Stroke Science Workshop, Garmisch-Partenkirchen |
| 2018 | Presidential Lecture, World Congress for Microcirculation, Vancouver |
| 2015 | Totman Lecture, University of Vermont |
| 2015 | Schueler Lecture, Tulane University |
| 2014 | Presidential Lecture, Microcirculation Society, San Diego |
| 2011 | Leica Scientific Forum Lecturer, Berlin / Heidelberg / Munich |
| 2010 | Heller Lecturer, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem |
| 2008 | Nobel Minisymposium, Stockholm |
| 2006 | Plenary Lecture, Japanese Association of Cardiovascular Pharmacology, Tokyo |
Professional Activity
| 2023 - 2027 | Member, University of California Retirement System (UCRS) Advisory Board (vice-Chair AY 2024/25; Chair AY 2025/26). |
| 2023 - 2028 | External Advisory Member, Leducq Foundation International Networks of Excellence Program. |
| 2021 - 2026 | External Advisory Member, NSF Frontier Center, University of Texas, Dallas. |
| 2020 - 2021 | UC San Diego Faculty Leadership Academy. |
| 2018 - 2022 | External Advisory Board, NINDS BRAIN U19 Team-Research Brain Research Program. |
| 2018 onward | Scientific Advisory Board, Neuroelectronics Research Flanders (NERF), Leuven. |
| 2017 - 2018 | Senior Scientific Advisor, National Center for Brain Mapping, Argonne National Laboratory. |
| 2015 - 2016 | Neurobiology Advisory Committee, U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation. |
| 2014 - 2020 | Board of Reviewing Editors, eLIFE. |
| 2011 - 2014 | Computational Neuroscience Advisory Board (headed by Prof. Adrienne Fairhall), University of Washington, Seattle. |
| 2009 onward | International Steering Committee, Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (headed by Prof. Bert Sakmann; then Prof. Joshua Sanes), Hebrew University of Jerusalem. |
| 2008 | Group leader, NINDS workshop, “Issues of Sensorimotor Integration in Neural Prosthesis”, DC. |
| 2007 - 2011 | Sensorimotor Integration Study Section, NIH Center for Scientific Review. |
| 2007 - 2008 | Change Control Board, NIH Neuroimaging Informatics Tools and Resources Clearinghouse (represented through the late Dr. Quoc-Thang Nguyen). |
| 2002 | External Advisory Committee, Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University. |
| 1993 | Scientific Advisory Board, Reuben H. Fleet Space and Science Museum, San Diego, CA. |
Meeting Organization
| 2025 | Co-Organizer, "Neurophysics of Active Sensing" (with Profs. Matthieu Louis, Pavan Ramdya, Tatyana Sharpee and Julie Simpson), Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UCSB. |
| 2022 | Session chair (with Prof. Fan Wang), "Barrels 2022" (organized by Prof. Carl Petersen), EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland |
| 2014, 2018, 2022 - 2025 | Co-Organizer, "Brain Blood Fest" (with Prof. Anna Devor), La Jolla, CA, Brookline, MA, and other venues. |
| 2018 | Co-Organizer, "George Feher: Commenorating a life in biophysics" (with Profs. James Allen, Mel Okamura and Wolfgang Lubitz), UCSD. |
| 2018 | Co-Organizer, "Recording, analyzing, manipulating, interpretting and modeling whole brain activity" (with Drs. Misha Ahrens, Tatyana Sharpee and Misha Tsodyks), Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UCSB. |
| 2018 | Co-Organizer, "Brains storming about the brainstem" (with Profs. Martin Deschênes, Jack Feldman and Terrence Sejnowski), Crick-Jacobs Center for Theoretical & Computational Biology, Salk Institute, CA. |
| 2017 | Co-Organizer, Workshop on "Physical limits to measurements in neurobiology" (with Drs. Tim Harris and Partha Mitra), HHMI Janelia Research Center, VA. |
| 2017 | Co-Organizer, "Neural basis of active sensation and navigation" (with Prof. Jill Leutgeb and Dr. Karel Svoboda), HHMI Janelia Research Center, VA. |
| 2013 | Scientific program committee, "Sensory systems and coding" (with Profs. Brent Doiron, Adrienne Fairhall and John Rinzel), Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University. |
| 2013 | Co-Organizer, "The rodent vibrissa system" (with Profs. Alison Barth, Mitra Hartmann and Dr. Karel Svoboda), HHMI Janelia Research Center, VA. |
| 2011 | Symposium Co-Organizer, “Automated histology in the pursuit of connectomes” (with Dr. Bert Sakmann), Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, DC. |
| 2011 | Session chair, "Biophysics of Neural Circuits and Synapses" (with Profs. Guo-Qiang Bi and H. Benjamin Peng), 17th International Biophysics Congress, Beijing, China |
| 2011 | Co-Organizer, "Two-photon microscopy: The next 6x1023 femtoseconds" (with Drs. Na Ji and Karel Svoboda), HHMI Janelia Research Center, VA. |
| 2010 | Co-Organizer, "Emerging Techniques in Neuroscience" Research Program (with Prof. Adrienne Fairhall and Dr. Fred Wolf), Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, UCSB. |
| 2010 | Session chair, "Active Sensing", Gordon Research Conference on Sensory Coding and the Natural Environment", Bates College, ME. |
| 2010 | Co-Organizer, "The neural basis of whisker-based tactile sensation" (with Prof. Mitra Hartmann and Dr. Karel Svoboda), HHMI Janelia Research Center, VA. |
| 2007 | Symposium Organizer, "Cortical blood flow dynamics in normal and dysfunctional states", Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA. |
| 2006 | Co-Organizer, "Dynamical Neuroscience XIV", National Institute for Mental Health Satellite Symposium, (with Drs. Dennis Glanzman and Partha Mitra and Profs. Emery Brown and Rob Kass), Atlanta Convention Center. |
| 2004-2025 | Program Committee, "Barrels" Meeting, a Society for Neuroscience satellite meeting. |
| 2004 | Program Committee, "Optical Techniques in Neuroscience", OSA Topical Meeting, Miami Beach, FL. |
| 2003 | Steering Committee, "Bio Conference II", American Physical Society, San Diego, CA. |
| 2003 | Symposium Organizer, "Motor control and adaptation in active sensation", Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA. |
| 2003 | Program Committee, "Commercial and Biomedical Applications of Ultrafast Lasers", Photonics West, San Jose Convention Center, CA. |
| 2001 | Co-Organizer, (Kavli) Institute for Theoretical Physics program on "Dynamics of Neural Networks: From Biophysics to Behavior" (w/ HS Seung & M Tsodyks), UC Santa Barbara. |
| 2001 | Co-Organizer, "Dynamical Neuroscience IX", National Institute for Mental Health Satellite Symposium, (with Dr. Dennis Glanzman and Profs. Sebastian Seung and Misha Tsodyks), San Diego Convention Center. |
| 1997 - 2000 | Co-Organizer, Workgroup on "Analysis of Neural Data" (with Dr. Partha Mitra), Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. |
Long ago (and far away)****
