Eric R. Kandel, M.D., is University Professor at Columbia and a Senior Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. A graduate of Harvard College and N.Y.U. School of Medicine, Kandel trained in Neurobiology at the NIH and in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He joined the faculty of the College of Physician and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1974 as the founding Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior.

Kandel’s research has been concerned with the molecular mechanisms of memory storage in Aplysia and mice. Recently he has focused on the genetic switch for converting short-term to long-term memory and on how long term memory can be restricted to be synapse-specific for which he received the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 2000. Kandel is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as well as the National Science Academies of Germany and France. He has been recognized with the Albert Lasker Award, the Wolf Prize of Israel and the National Medal of Science.