Charles A. Greer

Charles A. Greer is Professor of Neurosurgery and Neuroscience at Yale School of Medicine, where he serves as Co-Vice Chair of Research for Neurosurgery and Director of the Yale Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program. He maintains joint appointments in both the Department of Neurosurgery and Department of Neuroscience, with additional affiliations through the Wu Tsai Institute, Yale Combined Program in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, and Yale Stem Cell Center.

Dr. Greer's research focuses on understanding the fundamental mechanisms that establish orderly topographic maps within the central nervous system during development and regeneration. His laboratory primarily investigates the complex olfactory system, studying how axons sort into functional subsets and target specific regions in the olfactory bulb. His work has significant implications for understanding neural regeneration following injury or disease, particularly through his research on ensheathing cells that support axon growth and can promote remyelination in damaged spinal cord tissue.

His research spans multiple disciplines including neuroanatomy, developmental neuroscience, and neural regeneration, with particular emphasis on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of axon targeting, glial cell function, and neural circuit formation. Dr. Greer has established extensive collaborations across Yale departments including Neurology, Neurobiology, Anesthesiology, and Ophthalmology, as well as with institutions including Columbia University, Emory University, The Rockefeller University, University of Maryland, and University of Colorado.

Dr. Greer has received numerous prestigious awards including the Max Mozell Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Chemical Senses, the R.H. Wright Award for Outstanding Research in Olfaction, and recognition as Distinguished Professor from Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. He has served as President of the Association for Chemoreception Sciences and as a member of NIH study sections and the Advisory Council for the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

As an educator, Dr. Greer has directed the Yale Interdepartmental Neuroscience Graduate Program and mentored numerous students and postdoctoral fellows. He serves as Associate Editor for The Journal of Comparative Neurology and Journal of Neuroscience, and sits on the editorial boards of several other neuroscience journals. His extensive publication record demonstrates sustained contributions to understanding the organization and development of neural systems, particularly the olfactory pathway.