Michael Winding

I am a Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London, UK. I generated and analysed the first synaptic wiring diagram, or connectome, of an entire insect brain. Using this brain map and linked experimental tools, my group aims to understand how brain-wide computations generate social behaviours and how these computations go awry after social isolation or in disease.

About me:
I am originally from northern Indiana in the US, where I received Bachelor’s Degrees in Biology and Studio Art at the University of Notre Dame. From there, I received a PhD in Cell Biology working with Vladimir Gelfand studying cytoskeleton rearrangement in neurons and oocytes at Northwestern University, Chicago, IL. I worked as a postdoc studying how innate and learned valences are integrated in the Drosophila larva brain at Janelia Research Campus, HHMI in Ashburn, Virginia. Before my appointment at the Crick, I was a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, UK, working with Marta Zlatic and Albert Cardona at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology / Department of Zoology.