S. Murray Sherman

Biography

S. Murray Sherman (b. January 4, 1944 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) received his B.S. in biology at the California Institute of Technology in 1965. Thereafter, he completed his Ph.D. in 1969 under the supervision of J.M Sprague at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Sherman subsequently undertook postdoctoral training in physiology at the Australian National University in Canberra, remaining there until 1972. He moved on to hold Assistant and Associate Professorships at the University of Virginia, and was subsequently promoted to Full Professor of Physiology. In 1979, Dr. Sherman moved to the State University of New York, Stony Brook, as a full Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy, and was promoted to Leading Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy in 1990. In 2004 Dr. Sherman moved to the University of Chicago where he is currently the Maurice Goldblatt Professor, Chairman of Neurobiology, and a Pritzker scholar. Dr. Sherman has served on the committees of several scientific organizations and on the editorial boards of multiple scientific journals. He has held visiting academic positions at universities in the UK and China. He was awarded an honorary M.A from the University of Oxford in 1985. In addition to more than 140 scientific papers to his credit, Dr. Sherman has also authored several book chapters and text books. The main focus of Dr. Sherman's research is directed towards understanding thalamic functional organization through a variety of interdisciplinary techniques.

Research Interest

Thalamic functional organization and thalamocortical relationships. Stimulation techniques in slices include electrical activation and laser photostimulation involving both uncaging of glutamate (or GABA) and optogenetics.