Rate My Professor Jeff Lichtman

Jeff Lichtman is the Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Santiago Ramón y Cajal Professor of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. He served as Dean of Science for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences from July 2024 to January 2026. Lichtman earned an AB from Bowdoin College in 1973 and MD and PhD degrees from Washington University in St. Louis in 1980. Following a residency in neurology at Barnes Hospital, he completed a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. G. Sidman at Harvard Medical School. He joined the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in 1983, conducting research there for over two decades before moving to Harvard in 2004. Lichtman is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences.

His research centers on neural connectivity, synaptic competition, and circuit remodeling during development and adulthood. The Lichtman lab pioneered the Brainbow technique for stochastic multicolor labeling of neurons, allowing in vivo imaging of synaptic dynamics, and developed automated serial sectioning methods like the Automatic Tape-Collecting Lathe Ultramicrotome for electron microscopy-based connectomics. Key publications include "Axon Branch Removal at Developing Synapses by Axosome Shedding" (Neuron, 2004), "The role of neuronal identity in synaptic competition" (Nature, 2003), "Saturated Reconstruction of a Volume of Neocortex" (Cell, 2015), and a complete map of a cubic millimeter of human brain containing 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses (Science, 2024). Lichtman has received the Spencer Award, Keio Medical Science Prize, and Champalimaud Vision Award. He has delivered public lectures on connectomics and contributed to initiatives mapping brain circuits.