MCB is pleased to announce that Naoshige (Nao) Uchida, a leading neuroscientist whose work has reshaped our understanding of learning, decision-making, and sensory processing, has been appointed the Jeff C. Tarr Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology. The appointment, approved this fall, is retroactively effective to July.
Uchida joined Harvard in 2006 as an assistant professor and quickly emerged as a core member of the neuroscience community. He was promoted to associate professor after four years and became a full professor in 2013. In addition to leading a thriving research program, Uchida serves as Faculty Director of Undergraduate Education for the Neuroscience concentration, where he has played a central role in shaping and supporting the undergraduate curriculum. He also serves as Chair of the Standing Committee on Neuroscience.
“I’m deeply honored to be named the Jeff C.Tarr Professor,” Uchida said. “I am grateful to be recognized in this way by the department and the university. Harvard has been my academic home for nearly two decades, and I greatly appreciate the support that has made our work possible.”
The Tarr Professorship has previously been held by distinguished MCB faculty, Joshua Sanes. While the title itself does not change the direction of Uchida’s current projects, he emphasized that the honor reflects—and reinforces—the strength of the neuroscience community at Harvard.
“This recognition is really about the incredible environment here,” Uchida said. “I’m surrounded by colleagues and students who constantly inspire me.”
Across his time at Harvard, Uchida has become known not only for his influential contributions to neuroscience—particularly in understanding how the brain represents uncertainty and guides behavior—but also for his commitment to mentoring and teaching. His new professorship underscores both aspects of his impact.
In addition to his new professorship, Uchida’s lab has recently launched a major new project supported by a Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) grant, a collaborative award involving three teams: Uchida’s lab at Harvard, Bence Ölveczky at Harvard OEB, and Ann Kennedy, a principal investigator at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego.
The multi-year grant—awarded as an Autism Rat Models Consortium 2.0 grant—focuses on understanding autism using rat models developed by the Simons Foundation. Uchida’s team will investigate how dopamine contributes to behavioral features associated with autism.
“We are using rat models of autism, and we’re analyzing their behavioral phenotypes and dopamine function,” Uchida explains. “We are hoping that the richness of rats’ social behavior allows us a deeper inquiry into how social behaviors are altered in autism.” His group will specifically study how dopamine shapes the reward and threat aspects of social interaction.
“My lab studies dopamine, and we’re examining how it might regulate how rewarding social interaction is,” he said. “There’s also a special population of dopamine neurons that seems to regulate the threat and avoidance behavior. The balance between reward and threat—and how dopamine controls that—could be key to understanding social behavior in autism.”
“I am very grateful to the Simons Foundation for this award,” he said. “We are excited to continue this project and to extend our research toward understanding autism.”
MCB congratulates Naoshige Uchida on his appointment as the Jeff C. Tarr Professor and celebrates the promising new research directions opening through the Simons Foundation collaboration.
