Xiao-Jing Wang

Xiao-Jing Wang is Professor of Neurobiology at Yale University. He is also Director of the Swartz Program in Theoretical Neuroscience, Adjunct Professor of Physics, Applied Mathematics and Psychology at Yale. In addition, he has held visiting faculty positions at MIT, Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Dr. Wang received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Brussels in 1987, when he moved to the USA and switched to the then nascent field of theoretical and computational neuroscience. Dr. Wang is an expert on the neurobiology of executive and cognitive functions. His group has pioneered neural circuit models of the prefrontal cortex, which is often called the “CEO of the brain.” Their research led to the discovery of a specific neural circuit mechanism for decision-making (how we make choices); this finding can serve as a cornerstone and have broad implications for understanding the biological basis and computational principles of flexible behavior as well as its impairments associated with mental disorders. Dr. Wang was a recipient of Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow.