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Professor Scott Waddell

Senior Research Fellow

I studied biochemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Dundee, and researched cancer biology for my Ph.D. at the University of London. After postdoctoral study in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology I spent 10 years leading a research group in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I was recruited to Oxford as a Professor of Neurobiology and founding member of the Centre for Neural Circuits & Behaviour in November 2011. I was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College in 2014.

My group studies neural circuit properties of motivated and memory-directed behaviours, using the fruit fly Drosophila. We have generated cellular resolution understanding of the formation, consolidation, state-dependent retrieval, and revaluation of memory. Our studies use genetic manipulations, molecular biology, physiological measurements of neural activity and behavioural analyses. We have recently pioneered the application of single-cell transcriptomics to study of the fly brain, and with collaborators have generated a synaptic resolution wiring diagram, or connectome, of a large chunk of the fly brain. We are also interested in how transposons diversify the neural transcriptome, cellular function, and might create differences in the behaviour of individual animals.

I lecture on the MSc course in Neuroscience, and give an annual presentation to FHS Neuroscience students. The lab hosts FHS project students and I am happy to offer ad hoc tutorials covering my research areas.

I am a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow in Basic Biomedical Science, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of EMBO, and I was awarded the 2014 Liliane Bettencourt Prize for the Life Sciences.

Professor Scott Waddell

Senior Research Fellow
Email Scott
Follow Scott on Twitter

I studied biochemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Dundee, and researched cancer biology for my Ph.D. at the University of London. After postdoctoral study in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology I spent 10 years leading a research group in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I was recruited to Oxford as a Professor of Neurobiology and founding member of the Centre for Neural Circuits & Behaviour in November 2011. I was appointed as a Senior Research Fellow at Pembroke College in 2014.

My group studies neural circuit properties of motivated and memory-directed behaviours, using the fruit fly Drosophila. We have generated cellular resolution understanding of the formation, consolidation, state-dependent retrieval, and revaluation of memory. Our studies use genetic manipulations, molecular biology, physiological measurements of neural activity and behavioural analyses. We have recently pioneered the application of single-cell transcriptomics to study of the fly brain, and with collaborators have generated a synaptic resolution wiring diagram, or connectome, of a large chunk of the fly brain. We are also interested in how transposons diversify the neural transcriptome, cellular function, and might create differences in the behaviour of individual animals.

I lecture on the MSc course in Neuroscience, and give an annual presentation to FHS Neuroscience students. The lab hosts FHS project students and I am happy to offer ad hoc tutorials covering my research areas.

I am a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow in Basic Biomedical Science, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a member of EMBO, and I was awarded the 2014 Liliane Bettencourt Prize for the Life Sciences.