Professor Max Bennett is Emeritus Professor of Neuroscience and University Chair at the University of Sydney. He obtained a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 1963, an MSc in 1965, and a PhD in 1967. Bennett joined the Department of Physiology at the University of Sydney in 1969, where he advanced to a Personal Chair in 1980—the second such appointment in the university's history—and later served as Professor of Neuroscience. He founded and directed the Brain and Mind Research Institute in 2003, establishing it as a premier centre for multidisciplinary neuroscience research on synaptic function and psychiatric disorders. Bennett chaired the Mind & Neuroscience Research Institute and led the largest personally funded Research Centre of Excellence in Australia. His career includes directing the Special Research Centre of Excellence in Neurobiology from 1982 to 1990 and founding the International Society for Autonomic Neuroscience.

Bennett's research pioneered understandings of synaptic transmission, particularly identifying ATP as a cotransmitter at autonomic neuromuscular junctions in a 1963 Nature paper. He described synapse pruning and naturally occurring neuronal death during development, mechanisms of transmitter release from heterogeneous nerve terminals, and synaptic plasticity relevant to memory. Collaborating with P.M.S. Hacker, he critiqued cognitive neuroscience in books such as Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (2003, cited over 3300 times), History of Cognitive Neuroscience (2008), and History of the Synapse (2001). Other key publications include The formation of synapses in striated muscle during development (1974, Journal of Physiology) and The loss of ganglion cells in the developing retina of the rat (1982, Developmental Brain Research). Bennett has authored 15 books and hundreds of papers. His honours include Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1981), Officer of the Order of Australia (2001), Macfarlane Burnet Medal and Lecture (1999), and Distinguished Achievement Medal from the Australian Neuroscience Society (2001). He delivered invited lectures at the Royal Society, Yale University, and the United Nations.

Professional Email: max.bennett@sydney.edu.au