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    Richard Andersen, PhD (he/him/his)

    James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience and the T&C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center Leadership Chair
    Caltech
    Pasadena, California, United States

    Richard Andersen is the James G. Boswell Professor of Neuroscience and the T&C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center Leadership Chair at Caltech. Andersen obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Francisco and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Medical School. He was a faculty member of the Salk Institute and MIT before coming to Caltech. Andersen discovered gain-fields, the method the brain uses to transform signals between spatial representations. He also discovered neural signals of intention, proving that they are not sensory in nature but rather reflect the planning of the subject. He has applied this discovery of intention to advance research in brain-machine interfaces, showing that paralyzed patients’ intentions can be decoded from brain activity to control computers and robotic devices. Andersen is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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