Lisa Giocomo.

Lisa Giocomo

Professor of neurobiology
Stanford University School of Medicine

Lisa Giocomo is professor of neurobiology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her lab focuses on neural circuits underlying spatial navigation and memory, and how the brain’s internal map of space adapts to changes in the environment and shifts with an animal’s behavior or task goals.

She earned a B.A. in psychology at Baylor University and completed her Ph.D. in neuroscience at Boston University in the lab of Michael Hasselmo. Following her doctoral work, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience in Norway with Edvard and May-Britt Moser. She established her own lab at Stanford in 2013.

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of rolling dice.

Grant review needs reform. How about we add an element of chance?

A process that uses a lottery system saves time, reduces strategic resubmission and accepts that, above a quality threshold, luck has always played a part in science funding.

By Adrien Peyrache
25 September 2026 | 6 min read
Research diagram of gene expression.

Fly neurons carry molecular signatures of their origins

The pattern of transcription factors a Drosophila neuron expresses offers clues to its lineage and birth order—and ultimately how neural circuits emerge.

By Alissa de Chassey
25 September 2026 | 5 min read
Cortical organoids from the anterior (green) or posterior (red) cortex.

Polarized cortical organoids mimic the brain’s regional organization

The organoids show region-specific gene-expression changes that match those observed during fetal development.

By Holly Barker
24 September 2026 | 4 min read