Rate My Professor William Newsome

William Newsome is the Harman Family Provostial Professor of Neurobiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Professor, by courtesy, of Psychology in the Biology faculty. He is the Founding Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute. Newsome earned a B.S. in physics, summa cum laude, from Stetson University in 1974 and a Ph.D. in biology from the California Institute of Technology between 1974 and 1979. After postdoctoral work as a Staff Research Fellow at the National Eye Institute from 1980 to 1984, he served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1984 to 1988. He joined Stanford University in 1988 as Associate Professor of Neurobiology, advancing to full Professor in 1993, and has held the Harman Family Provostial Professorship since 2013. Additional appointments include Chair of the Department of Neurobiology from 2005 to 2008, Director of BioX NeuroVentures from 2008 to 2013, and Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1997 to 2019. He directed the Neurosciences Graduate Program from 2000 to 2005.

Newsome's research investigates the neuronal processes mediating visual perception and visually guided behavior through behavioral, electrophysiological, and computational approaches in nonhuman primates, with a focus on cortical area MT and decision-making mechanisms. Landmark publications include 'Neuronal correlates of a perceptual decision' (Newsome, Britten, Movshon, Nature, 1989), 'Cortical microstimulation influences perceptual judgements of motion direction' (Salzman, Britten, Newsome, Nature, 1990), 'The variable discharge of cortical neurons: Implications for connectivity, computation, and information coding' (Shadlen, Newsome, Journal of Neuroscience, 1998), and recent works such as 'Decoding and perturbing decision states in real time' (Peixoto et al., Nature, 2021) and 'Remote, brain region-specific control of choice behavior with ultrasonic waves' (Kubanek et al., Science Advances, 2020). His contributions have profoundly influenced systems and cognitive neuroscience. Honors include election to the National Academy of Sciences (2000), American Philosophical Society (2011), and American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017); the Champalimaud Vision Award (2010), Dan David Prize (2004), Karl Spencer Lashley Award (2010), Rank Prize in Optoelectronics (1992), and Golden Brain Award (1992). Newsome co-chaired the NIH BRAIN working group and has delivered distinguished lectures including the Marr Lecture at the University of Cambridge and the Brenda Milner Lecture at McGill University.