The Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing Conference

Rachel Wong is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biological Structure at the University of Washington. Her lab has focused on several model systems, including mice and zebrafish, and more recently has been involved in studies of human and non-human primate retina. She and her lab team use a combination of light microscopy, serial block-face electron microscopy, and electrophysiology to answer their questions. They have also developed live cell imaging approaches to track structural changes in neurons throughout their development, during neuronal degeneration, and upon regeneration of circuits in animal disease models. 

Wong completed her doctoral training in Visual Neuroscience with A. Hughes and W.R. Levick, studying the development of the mammalian retina. Since becoming an independent investigator in 1994, she has been investigating the cellular mechanisms that underlie the assembly, disassembly, and reassembly of retinal circuits of vertebrates.

Among her many honors, Wong is the recipient of the ARVO Friedenwald Award and the FASEB Brian Boycott Prize in Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing. She is an elected member of the National Vision Research Institute of Australia and the National Academy of Sciences. 

Jonathan Demb is a Professor of Ophthalmology & Visual Science at Yale University where he has secondary positions as a Professor in the departments of Cellular & Molecular Physiology and Neuroscience. He has been studying the function of the visual system in humans and animal models, using a variety of experimental approaches, since 1995. His lab studies how information is processed at the level of synaptic interactions within neural circuitry of the mammalian retina and at the level of retinal ganglion cell output. The long-term goal is to understand how the functional organization of retinal circuitry generates healthy vision, and how novel treatments could preserve vision in retinal diseases.

Demb earned his undergraduate degree in Psychology, summa cum laude, from Boston University. He completed his PhD in Physiological Psychology at Stanford University followed by his postdoc in Neurobiology at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Demb is a Reviewing Editor for the Journal of Neuroscience and serves on the Editorial Board for PLOS Biology. He is a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Eye Institute at the NIH. He is the recipient of the Cogan Award from the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology. 

In 2024, Demb will serve as the elected Chair of the FASEB Retinal Neurobiology and Visual Processing Science Research Conference.