Stephen Williams

I have held staff and visiting scientist positions at leading research institutes on three continents. I was educated in the United Kingdom, gaining the equivalent of the University medal from Cardiff University in physiology for undergraduate studies and the Pfizer Prize, from the Physiological Society (UK) for postgraduate research. Subsequently I undertook postdoctoral research positions in the United States of America and Australia supported by fellowships from the American Epilepsy and the Swartz Foundations. My independent academic career was established as a research fellow at the John Curtin School of Medial Research, Canberra, Australia in 2001, and furthered by support from a von Humboldt fellowship (Germany). In 2002 I become a programme leader (track) at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), Cambridge, UK, where I was tenured in 2009. My experience at the LMB provided a vital foundation of how excellence in research is achieved and resulted in the award of the Max Perutz Young Investigator Award in 2004. In 2010 I relocated to Australia as an associate professor and ARC Future Fellow, and was promoted to full professor in 2014. Concurrently I was invited to take up a visiting scientist position at the HHMI-Janelia Farm Research Campus, Ashburn, USA. Over my independent academic career my work has been published regularly in leading academic journals including Science, Nature, Neuron, and Nature Neuroscience highlighting breakthroughs in the understanding of single neuron and circuit computations in neocortical and retinal circuitry through the development of multi-site electrical and optical recording techniques.

WILLIAMS, S.R., ZHUO, X., & FLETCHER, L.N. (2023). Compartment-specific dendritic information processing is reconfigured by peptide neuromodulation in striatal cholinergic interneurons. Neuron, 111, 1933-195.

BROMBAS, A. ZHUO, X. & WILLIAMS, S.R. (2022). Light-evoked dendritic spikes in sustained but not transient rabbit retinal ganglion cells. Neuron, 110, 2802-2814.

GOOCH, H.M., BLUETT, T., PERUMAL, M.B., VO, H.D., FLETCHER, L.N., PAPACOSTAS, J., JEFFREE, R.L., WOOD, M., COLDITZ, M.J., MCMILLEN, J., TSAHTSARLIS, T., AMATO, D., CAMPBELL, R., GILLINDER, L., & WILLIAMS, S.R. (2022). High-fidelity dendritic sodium spike generation in human layer 2/3 neocortical pyramidal neurons. Cell Reports, 41(3):111500.

WILLIAMS, S.R. & FLETCHER, L.N. (2019). A dendritic substrate for the cholinergic control of neocortical output neurons. Neuron, 101, 486-499.

FLETCHER, L.N. & WILLIAMS, S.R. (2019). Neocortical topology governs the dendritic integrative capacity of layer 5 pyramidal neurons. Neuron, 101, 76-90.

BROMBAS, A.* , KALITA-de CROFT, S.* , COOPER-WILLIAMS, E.J. & WILLIAMS, S.R. (2017). Dendro[1]dendritic cholinergic excitation controls dendritic spike initiation in retinal ganglion cells. Nature Communications, 7, 8:15683

SIVYER, B. & WILLIAMS, S.R. (2013). Direction selectivity is computed by active dendritic integration in retinal ganglion cells. Nature Neuroscience, 16, 1848-1856. 15.

HARNETT, M.T., XU, N-L, MAGEE, J.C. & WILLIAMS, S.R. (2013). Potassium channels control the interaction between active dendritic integration compartments in layer 5 cortical pyramidal neurons. Neuron, 79, 516-529. 16.

XU, N-L, HARNETT, M.T.,WILLIAMS, S.R., HUBER, D., O’CONNOR, D.H., SVOBODA, K. & MAGEE, J.C. (2012). Nonlinear dendritic integration of sensory and motor input during an active sensing task. Nature, 492, 247-251

WILLIAMS, S.R. & WOZNY, C. (2011). Errors in the measurement of voltage-activated ion channels in cell-attached patch-clamp recordings. Nature Communications, 2, 242, doi: 10.1038/ncomms1225.

WILLIAMS S.R. & MITCHELL, S.J. (2008). Direct measurement of somatic voltage clamp errors in central neurons. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 790-798. 26.

KOLE, M.H.P.,ILSCHNER S.U., KAMPA,B.M.,WILLIAMS, S.R.,RUBEN, P.C.& STUART, G.J.(2008). Action potential generation requires a high sodium channel density in the axon initial segment. Nature Neuroscience, 11, 178-186. 27.

WILLIAMS, S.R., WOZNY. C. & MITCHELL, S.J. (2007). The back and forth of dendritic plasticity. Neuron, 56:947-953.

WILLIAMS, S.R. (2004). Spatial compartmentalization and functional impact of conductance in pyramidal neurons. Nature Neuroscience, 7, 961-967.

WILLIAMS, S.R. & STUART, G.J. (2002). Dependence of EPSP efficacy on synapse location in neocortical pyramidal neurons. Science, 295, 1907-1910.