Rate My Professor Dheeraj roy

Dheeraj Roy, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University at Buffalo, a position he assumed in January 2024. He earned his PhD in Neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2017, along with BS and MS degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel University in 2010. Prior to joining UB, Roy completed postdoctoral training as a McGovern Fellow and Postdoctoral Associate at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and served as a research assistant at Harvard Medical School. His academic achievements include the NIH K99 Fellowship and Warren Alpert Distinguished Scholar Award in 2021, R00 award in 2024, Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award and TEDxCambridge Distinguished Speaker in 2017, and the Sagol Network GerOmic Award for Junior Faculty in 2025.

Roy's research investigates thalamic function in health and disease, focusing on the molecular, cellular, and circuit mechanisms underlying higher-order cognitive processes such as working memory, long-term memory encoding and retrieval, attention, and decision-making. Employing mouse models, his lab utilizes single-cell RNA sequencing, circuit tracing, in vivo neural activity measurements including fiber photometry and one-photon calcium imaging, CRISPR, and neural manipulation techniques like chemogenetics and optogenetics to identify novel thalamic cell types and link them to cognitive functions. Key publications include 'Targeting thalamic circuits rescues motor and mood deficits in PD mice' (Nature, 2022, co-first author), 'Anterior thalamic circuits crucial for working memory' (PNAS, 2022, first author), 'Thalamic subnetworks as units of function' (Nature Neuroscience, 2022, first author), 'Anterior thalamic dysfunction underlies cognitive deficits in a subset of neuropsychiatric disease models' (Neuron, 2021, first author), 'Silent memory engrams as the basis for retrograde amnesia' (PNAS, 2017, first author), and 'Distinct neural circuits for the formation and retrieval of episodic memories' (Cell, 2017, co-first author). These contributions have advanced knowledge of memory engrams, thalamic circuitry in cognition, and therapeutic targets for neuropsychiatric disorders.