Terrence Sejnowski.

Terrence Sejnowski

Francis Crick Chair
Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Terrence Sejnowski holds the Francis Crick Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He is also professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego, where he co-directs the Institute for Neural Computation and the NSF Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center. He is president of the Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation, which organizes an annual conference attended by more than 1,000 researchers in machine learning and neural computation and is founding editor-in-chief of Neural Computation, published by the MIT Press.

As a pioneer in computational neuroscience, Sejnowski’s goal is to understand the principles that link brain to behavior. His laboratory uses both experimental and modeling techniques to study the biophysical properties of synapses and neurons and the population dynamics of large networks of neurons.

He received his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School. He was on the faculty at the Johns Hopkins University before joining the faculty at the University of California, San Diego. He has published more than 300 scientific papers and 12 books, including “The Computational Brain,” with Patricia Churchland.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Research image containing repeated structures, suggesting potential image manipulation.

More than two dozen papers by neural tube researcher come under scrutiny

One of the studies, published in 2021 in Science Advances, received an editorial expression of concern on 21 May, after the journal learned that an institutional review of alleged image problems is underway.

By Claudia López Lloreda
9 June 2025 | 6 min read

On the importance of reading (just not too much)

The real fun of being a neuroscientist, and maybe the key to asking and answering new questions, is to think big and take intellectual risks.

By Sheena Josselyn
9 June 2025 | 8 min read
Research image of developing axons in the fly brain.

How developing neurons simplify their search for a synaptic mate

Streamlining the problem from 3D to 1D eases the expedition—a strategy the study investigators deployed to rewire an olfactory circuit in flies.

By Calli McMurray
6 June 2025 | 6 min read