On September 25, Oujiang Lab held a signing ceremony with Professor Stephen Richard Williams, an internationally renowned neurobiology expert from the University of Queensland and Monash University in Australia. The event was attended by Zhu Qiren, Deputy Director of the Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee Organization Department and Full-time Deputy Director of the Municipal Talent Office, as well as Academician Song Weihong, Director of Oujiang Lab, among other distinguished guests.
On behalf of Oujiang Lab, Academician Song Weihong extended a warm welcome to Professor Stephen Richard Williams. He noted that Professor Williams is an outstanding scholar with significant international influence in the field of brain disease research. His addition will strengthen the lab’s high-level talent pool and, with his solid theoretical expertise, is expected to significantly advance Oujiang Lab’s capabilities in applied research and translation.
Deputy Director Zhu Qiren also expressed a warm welcome to Professor Stephen Richard Williams. He emphasized that scientific innovation and research translation rely heavily on talent. Professor Williams’ joining will further enhance Wenzhou’s scientific research talent team. The Municipal Party Committee Organization Department will provide comprehensive follow-up support services to fully leverage the strong momentum of talent-driven development, thereby offering robust talent support for scientific innovation and high-quality economic growth.
Professor Stephen Richard Williams expressed his honor in joining the Oujiang Lab community. He thanked the lab for its trust and assistance and stated that, upon assuming his position, he would promptly assemble a team to commence research. He looks forward to achieving remarkable successes together with Oujiang Lab in the future.
Stephen Richard Williams Brief Biography
Professor Stephen Richard Williams, a British national aged 56, currently serves as a professor at the University of Queensland in Australia and holds a concurrent position as an adjunct professor at Monash University.
He obtained his Bachelor of Physiology from the University of Wales in 1992, and pursued graduate studies at the University of Oxford and the University of Wales, earning his Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 1996. From 1996 to 2002, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Australian National University (ANU). In 2002, he joined the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the University of Cambridge as a project leader. In 2004, he received the Max Perutz Young Scientist Award and was awarded tenure in 2009. Since 2010, he has held the position of Associate Professor at the Queensland Brain Institute and was awarded the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. He was promoted to full professor in 2014. During this period, he was invited as a Visiting Fellow at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus in the United States, making him the only Australian scientist to receive this honor.
His research findings have been published in top-tier international academic journals such as Science, Nature, Nature Neuroscience, and Neuron. He has developed multi-site electrical and optical recording technologies, achieving groundbreaking progress in single-neuron and circuit computation. His work holds significant translational potential and value for major brain disease research. He serves as an editor for authoritative journals, including Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience. In 2015, he was invited to serve as the Director of the Australian Advanced Neuroscience Course and, in 2019, secured the highly competitive National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator Grant.
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