Research Scientist studying Developmental Genetics in Drosophila melanogaster. Director of the Washington University Biology Department Imaging Core

I trained as a computer scientist. Following a joint postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, I joined Washington University in St. Louis in 2010. Currently, I am an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. My research interests include computational and systems neuroscience, pattern recognition, sensor-based machine olfaction and bio-inspired intelligent systems. I am interested in understanding how brain processes complex sensory signals (especially the olfactory cues), and to identify fundamental principles of neural computation. I use both experimental and theoretical approaches to achieve these goals. In parallel, my lab is also involved with the development of novel neuromorphic devices (such as an 'electronic nose') and algorithms that have potential applications in biomedical, homeland security and bio-robotic domains.

Dr. Yehuda Ben-Shahar attended Tel-Aviv University in Israel for his undergraduate studies in Life Sciences. For his PhD thesis work, he joined the laboratory of Dr. Gene Robinson at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he developed a program that focused on molecular genetics and the genomic analyses of social behaviors by using the honey bee as a model. While working on his PhD, he was fortunate to be introduced to the world of Drosophila neurogenetics via a long-term collaboration with Dr. Marla Sokolowski from the University of Toronto, Canada. For his postdoctoral training, Dr. Ben-Shahar joined the HHMI laboratory of Dr. Michael Welsh at the University of Iowa College of medicine where he established the fruit fly as a model for studying the molecular signaling pathways that underlie the role of ligand-gated ion channels in sensory-driven innate decision-making behaviors. Yehuda joined the Biology faculty at Washington University in St. Louis in 2008 as an assistant professor and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in 2015, with a joint appointment in the Department of Medicine. By using forward and reverse genetics, optogenetics, and transgenic approaches, members of the Ben-Shahar research group investigate various questions related to innate decision making behaviors, the genetics of the intrinsic neuronal homeostatic response to stress, the impact of trace metals on the development and physiology of dopaminergic circuits, and the roles of non-coding RNAs in neural development and behavior. Yehuda teaches an annual upper level undergraduate course in behavioral genetics, and a behavioral genetics laboratory. Yehuda received several awards, including the IBANGS Young Investigator Award in 2015.