Sam Wang

Sam Wang, Ph.D., is an associate professor of neuroscience at Princeton University. Before becoming a professor, he studied at Caltech, Stanford, and Bell Labs. His research has been covered by the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NPR, and the Fox News Channel, and he is the recipient of many honors, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a W. M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholar Award. In the laboratory, some of Dr. Wang's most intriguing discoveries have emanated from studies of the cerebellum, a brain region generally associated with the coordination of muscle movements. He is particularly curious about the cerebellum's role in non-motor functions and is using neural imaging of this part of the brain to search for clues to the causes of autism, a major concern of his laboratory. Among many other questions in neuroscience, he and his colleagues are examining the forces that strengthen and weaken synapses, the active junctions between neurons that are essential to every function of the nervous system, including movement, sensation, emotion, and memory. Welcome to Your Child's Brain has been slated for publication in 16 different countries and 13 languages. A previous book, Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive, was a best seller. He is also co-founder of the Princeton Election Consortium, where in 2004 he pioneered the use of statistical meta-analysis to monitor and predict U.S. Presidential races.