Sheila Nirenberg

Sheila Nirenberg, Ph.D., is Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University. She holds the Nanette Laitman Professorship in Neurology and Neuroscience since 2014, Professor of Computational Neuroscience in Computational Biomedicine in the Institute for Computational Biomedicine, and Professor of Systems and Computational Biomedicine since 2025. Nirenberg earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1993. Her research in computational neuroscience focuses on neural encoding and decoding in the visual system, particularly the retina's neural code, population coding, and how neurons represent visual scenes. She investigates linear and nonlinear transformations in retinal circuits, using techniques such as optogenetics to advance understanding of systems neuroscience. Nirenberg is a member of the Physiology, Biophysics and Systems Biology graduate program and the Tri-Institutional PhD Program in Computational Biology and Medicine.

Nirenberg's key publications include "A novel signaling pathway from rod photoreceptors to ganglion cells in mammalian retina" (Neuron, 1998), "Retinal ganglion cells act largely as independent encoders" (Nature, 2001), "Intrinsic dynamics in neuronal networks. I. Theory" and "II. Experiment" (Journal of Neurophysiology, 2000), "Synergy, redundancy, and independence in population codes, revisited" (Journal of Neuroscience, 2005), "Ruling out and ruling in neural codes" (PNAS, 2009), "Retinal prosthetic strategy with the capacity to restore normal vision" (PNAS, 2012), and "A clinically viable approach to restoring visual function using optogenetic gene therapy" (Molecular Therapy Methods & Clinical Development, 2023). Her work has transformed vision restoration for the blind through retinal prosthetics and optogenetics. As founder of Bionic Sight LLC, she developed BS01 gene therapy, which received FDA Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation in February 2025; interim trial results showed patients detecting light and motion. Nirenberg received the MacArthur Fellowship in 2013, the Barbara McClintock Women Innovator Award, and Crain's Notable Women in Technology recognition in 2019. She has presented on brain-machine interfaces and bionic vision, including at TEDMED.

Professional Email: shn2010@med.cornell.edu