Stanley Goldin earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He has served on the Harvard Medical School faculty since 1979. Formerly an associate professor and the director of Harvard’s Pharmacological Sciences Training Program, he is now on faculty of the National Science Foundation-funded Cognitive Rhythms Collaborative, an inter-institutional research collaborative devoted to elucidating brain mechanisms, spawning new therapies for brain disorders.

Goldin is a senior inventor on 25 U.S. biotechnology patents; his laboratory originated award-winning research techniques and devices that have been fruitfully employed to elucidate molecular mechanisms underlying brain waves and brain oscillation circuitry—processes now known to play an important role in long-term brain changes (neuroplasticity) and memory formation. As a scientific cofounder of the biotechnology company Cambridge NeuroScience, he also led research producing a novel neuroprotective compound reaching advanced clinical trials for stroke and traumatic brain injury. His honors include a McKnight scholarship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, a Searle Scholars Award, and the Clapp and Poliak Award for Engineering Design. Goldin is now finishing a book, Ascent of the Human Brain, on modern neuroscience’s impact on our understanding of human consciousness and evolution.