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I was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942 and grew up in Belmont, MA, where I had all of my precollege education in the town's public schools. By the time I graduated from high school in 1960 and entered Harvard College in Cambridge, MA, I had developed my two life passions: biology and classical music. Although I expected to major in music, I eventually settled on a major in biology, I had the good fortune to work with John Law, then a young faculty member associated with Konrad Bloch's research group in the Chemistry Department. Law not only gave me an unlimited opportunity to immerse myself in laboratory research, but also generously encouraged and aided my scientific development and guided me through the authorship of my first publication and my first presentation at a scientific meeting. Upon receiving the A.B. degree in 1964, I began graduate studies at the Rockefeller Institute (later to become the Rockefeller University) in New York City. After invaluable experiences in the laboratories of George Palade and Christian de Duve, I found my way to the research group headed by Fritz Lipmann. With Lipmann nd his long-time colleague Leonard Spector as mentors, I completed a dissertation in the realm of bio-organic chemistry, energy metabolism,and mechanisms of enzymatic reactions. In retrospect one of the most important experiences of my life was a chance encounter in 1965, at the new-book shelf in the Rockefeller library, with a little book by Kenneth Roeder, Nerve Cells and Insect Behavior. Once I started to read that book, I couldn't put it down, and when I had finished it several hours later, I knew what I wanted to do as a scientist.
By the time I received the Ph.D. degree in 1969, I had decided to join the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School for postdoctoral research training. Fortunate to work with Ed Kravitz and strongly influenced by Steve Kuffler, Ed Furshpan, David Hubel, David Potter, and Torsten Wiesel, as well as a cadre of extraordinary fellow postdocs and graduate students, my three years as a postdoc were exhilarating and profoundly stimulating. In 1972, I accepted an appointment as an Assistant Professor in the same department, established my independent lab, and launched a program of research on the metamorphosis of the nervous system of the giant sphinx moth Manduca sexta. I was promoted to Associate Professor in 1977. In 1980 I moved to the Department of Biological Sciences at Columbia University in New York City, attracted by an invitation to help build a section devoted to developmental
neurobiology.
Shortly after my move to Columbia, a casual encounter during a seminar trip introduced me to Gail Burd, a postdoctoral neuroscientist who quickly became a very special friend and colleague and, before long, my wife and life companion. About the same time, another
unforeseen opportunity developed when I was invited by the University of Arizona (UA) to consider a challenging assignment in Tucson -- namely, to develop a research group in invertebrate neurobiology. That call proved irresistible, and in 1985 Gail and I headed westward together with four members of my New York lab group. The Arizona Research Laboratories Division of Neurobiology (ARLDN) was inaugurated in December, 1985. At the UA, my primary appointment (which since 1989 has
been a Regents Professorship) is in Neurobiology, and I hold joint appointments in Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics, Entomology, and Molecular & Cellular Biology. Since 1985 I have also served as Director of the ARLDN, and in the period 1986-97 I was Chairman of the Committee on Neuroscience, the UA-wide consortium of faculty members responsible for the UA's Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience.
See my Curriculum vitae for further information on past and present professional activities.
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Selected Recent Publications
Lei H, Riffell JA, Gage SL, Hildebrand JG. Feb 2009. Contrast enhancement of stimulus intermittency in a primary olfactory network and its behavioral significance. J Biol, 8:21
Riffell JA, Lei H, Christensen TA, Hildebrand JG. Feb 2009. Characterization and Coding of Behaviorally Significant Odor Mixtures. Curr Biol,2009 Feb 18;
Reisenman CE, Heinbockel T, Hildebrand JG. Aug 2008. Inhibitory interactions among olfactory glomeruli do not necessarily reflect spatial proximity. J Neurophysiol, 100:554-64
Hildebrand JG, Riffell JA. Jul 2008. Journal of Chemical Ecology. Preface. J Chem Ecol, 34:820-1
Riffell JA, Abrell L, Hildebrand JG. Jul 2008. Physical processes and real-time chemical measurement of the insect olfactory environment. J Chem Ecol, 34:837-53
Dacks AM, Christensen TA, Hildebrand JG. May 2008. Modulation of olfactory information processing in the antennal lobe of Manduca sexta by serotonin. J Neurophysiol, 99:2077-85
Riffell JA, Alarcón R, Abrell L, Davidowitz G, Bronstein JL, Hildebrand JG. Mar 2008. Behavioral consequences of innate preferences and olfactory learning in hawkmoth-flower interactions. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 105:3404-9
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