Headshot of Thomasz Nowakowski.

Tomasz Nowakowski

Associate professor of neurological surgery, anatomy and psychiatry and behavioral sciences
University of California, San Francisco

Tomasz Nowakowski is associate professor of neurological surgery, anatomy and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also a member of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco. His independent research laboratory employs scalable technologies to address fundamental questions about the development, structure and function of the brain.

He completed his Ph.D. in the molecular and cellular basis of disease at Edinburgh University, supported by the Wellcome Trust. As a graduate student, he investigated the roles of microRNAs in mammalian brain development. He subsequently completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, where he leveraged emerging single-cell sequencing technologies to identify molecular signatures of progenitor cell subtypes in the human brain.

He is a member of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Atlas Network, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Pediatric Cell Network, the psychENCODE Consortium, SSPsyGene, the Armamentarium consortium and Convergence Neuroscience. He is a recipient of the Cajal Club’s Krieg Cortical Kudos Cortical Explorer Award, the Sontag Foundation’s Distinguished Scientist Award, Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in Neuroscience Award and the Joseph Altman Award in Developmental Neuroscience. He also received honorable mention for Daniel X. Freedman Prize and was a finalist for the Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology. He is a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Neuroscience Investigator.

From this contributor

Explore more from The Transmitter

Finding the Rett syndrome gene and ways to fix it

Kevin Mitchell talks with Huda Zoghbi about her work identifying the MECP2 gene, its role in the brain and therapies to address its dysfunction.

By Kevin Mitchell
21 September 2026 | 4 min read
Hand holding a vial of microplastics.

Measuring plastic in the brain: Improving, but incomplete

Meanwhile, researchers are publishing papers without “sufficient quality control,” says analytical chemist Dušan Materić.

By Amber Dance
18 September 2026 | 9 min read
Calendar with deadline.

Incredible shrinking grant deadlines at the BRAIN Initiative

“A month is crazy,” says one former recipient, referring to a new funding opportunity’s timeline.

By Brendan Borrell
17 September 2026 | 4 min read