Ed Boyden is Y. Eva Tan Professor in Neurotechnology at MIT, a McGovern Institute Investigator, and professor of brain and cognitive sciences, media arts and sciences, and biological engineering at MIT. He is also an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Boyden leads the Synthetic Neurobiology Group at MIT, which develops tools for analyzing and repairing complex biological systems, and applies them to repair the brain and to create biologically accurate computer simulations of the brain. He also co-directs the MIT Center for Neurobiological Engineering, which aims to develop new tools to accelerate neuroscience progress, and the K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics, which pioneers transformational bionic interventions across a broad range of conditions affecting the body and mind. He is a faculty member of the MIT Center for Environmental Health Sciences, Computational & Systems Biology Initiative, and Koch Institute.
Boyden received his PhD in neurosciences from Stanford University in the labs of Jennifer Raymond and Richard Tsien. He started college at age 14, studying chemistry at the University of North Texas with Paul Braterman, and went on to earn three degrees from MIT in physics, electrical engineering and computer science, by age 19. Boyden joined the MIT faculty in 2007 and was named a McGovern Investigator in 2010.
Honors
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Member, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows
Member, National Academy of Inventors
Awards
- 2020 – Wilhelm Exner Medal, Austrian Industry Association
- 2019 – Croonian Medal, The Royal Society
- 2019 – Warren Alpert Prize, Warren Alpert Foundation
- 2019 – Lennart Nilsson Award, Karolinska Institutet
- 2019 – Rumford Prize, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- 2018 – Canada Gairdner International Award, Gairdner Foundation
- 2016 – Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences
- 2015 – Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biology and Biomedicine, BBVA Foundation
- 2015 – Young Investigator Award, Society for Neuroscience
- 2015 – Andrew Carnegie Prize in Mind and Brain Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
- 2013 – Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine, Brandeis University
- 2013 – NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, National Institutes of Health
- 2013 – Brain Prize (formerly known as the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Prize), Lundbeck Foundation
- 2011 – Perl/UNC Prize in Neuroscience, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine
