Jesse H. Goldberg

Jesse H. Goldberg is a Professor and holds the Dr. David and Dorothy Joslovitz Merksamer Professorship in Biological Sciences at Cornell University, with dual appointments in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and Psychology within the College of Arts and Sciences. He leads the Goldberg Lab, which focuses on comparative systems neuroscience through the study of vocal communication in songbirds and parrots, as well as motor control in mice.

Dr. Goldberg's research investigates how the brain implements learning through trying new things, evaluating outcomes, and modifying future performance. His work emphasizes comparative approaches to distinguish general neural principles from species-specific solutions to motor control problems. The lab combines electrophysiology, optogenetics, and machine learning-guided behavioral analysis to study neural mechanisms in cortex, basal ganglia, and cerebellum—brain regions implicated in disorders such as Parkinson's, dystonia, and ADHD.

His research has revealed significant insights into dopamine signaling during vocal learning, demonstrating that songbirds receive dopaminergic feedback when hitting the right note and that these signals are dynamically gated by social context. Goldberg discovered an actor-critic circuit motif in songbird basal ganglia similar to those used in reinforcement learning algorithms, and identified how ventral pallidal regions generate predicted quality signals for song syllables.

• Dr. David and Dorothy Joslovitz Merksamer Professor in Biological Sciences
• Klarman Fellow (2022-23)
• Pew Investigator

Dr. Goldberg's work has important implications for understanding how neural circuits implement learning across species, with potential applications for treating movement and neuropsychiatric disorders. His lab continues to investigate how neural mechanisms of learning and performance evaluation operate across different social contexts and species.