Michael Crair, PhD
Vice Provost for Research and William Ziegler III Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual ScienceCards
About
Titles
Vice Provost for Research and William Ziegler III Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Science
Vice Provost for Research, Office of the ProvostBiography
Michael C. Crair is the William Ziegler III Professor in the Department of Neuroscience, Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Science and Vice Provost for Research at Yale University. Dr. Crair obtained his doctoral degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral training in physics and neuroscience at Kyoto University and Kyoto Prefectural Medical School in Japan and in neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. He was a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas before coming to Yale as a member of the Department of Neuroscience in 2007. He has directed Yale’s Vision Core Program, the Graduate Program in Neuroscience, was Deputy Chair of the Department of Neuroscience from 2015-2017, then Deputy Dean for Scientific Affairs (Basic Science Departments) at the School of Medicine from 2017-2020 when he became the Vice Provost for Research at Yale University.
Dr. Crair maintains an active research program that develops and employs advanced imaging techniques to examine the basic mechanisms that mediate brain circuit development. He has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of neural activity in the developing brain, for instance by demonstrating that early spontaneous neuronal activity is an essential part of normal brain development. He is currently exploring the mechanisms by which this activity is generated and how it shapes brain circuit development. He has been awarded numerous honors for his research and teaching, including the Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Foundation Fellowship Award in the Neurosciences, the Marc Dresden Excellence in Graduate Education Award, and a NARSAD-Sidney R. Baer Jr. Foundation Young Investigator Award. He has also been named an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellow, a John Merck Fund Scholar and the March of Dimes Foundation's Basil O'Connor Fellow.
Appointments
Neuroscience
ProfessorPrimaryOphthalmology
ProfessorSecondary
Other Departments & Organizations
Education & Training
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- University of California at San Francisco (1997)
- Postdoctoral Researcher
- Kyoto University and Kyoto Prefectural Medical School (1993)
- PhD
- University of California at Berkeley (1991)
- MA
- University of California at Berkeley, Physics (1987)
- AB
- University of California at Berkeley, Physics (1985)
Research
Overview
Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)
Links & Media
Media
- Patterns of spontaneous brain activity in the neonatal mouse cortex
- Pattern of projections from eye to brain in mice. Retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon projections from the retina to the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus (LGN) and superior colliculus (SC) are mapped with respect to retinotopic origin. In the retinotopic map the D-V axis of the retina is mapped onto the L-M axis of the SC and the N-T axis of the retina is mapped onto the C-R axis of the SC. D, V, N, T: Dorsal, ventral, nasal, temporal. L, M, C, R: Lateral, medial, caudal, rostral.
News
- August 15, 2024Source: Yale News
Brain Wiring Is Guided by Activity Even in Very Early Development
- August 15, 2024Source: Yale News
‘Full Steam Ahead’: Yale Research as Engine of Innovation
- July 10, 2024
Highlighting Yale’s Neuroscience Research
- January 19, 2024Source: YaleNews
Research Cores: Making Science Easier, More Fruitful, and More Efficient