Tim Gardner is an associate professor of neuroengineering and Robert & Leona DeArmond Chair in the Department of Bioengineering at the Knight Campus. His research involves songbirds, which provide a model system for studying neural circuit dynamics. Researchers in the Gardner Lab record from singing birds and develop deep-learning-based computational methods to study vocal behavior and neural activity patterns during singing. In this process, the group addresses fundamental questions about how neural circuits self-organize and how trial and error learning builds skilled motor behaviors.

Prior to joining the Knight Campus, Gardner worked as a founding member of Neuralink Corp., a company building a fully implanted bidirectional interface to the human brain. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton University and earned his doctorate in biology and physics at Rockefeller University. He completed his post-doctoral fellowships at Rockefeller University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.