Will Talbot

Professor of developmental biology
Stanford University

Will Talbot is professor of developmental biology at Stanford University. His research focuses on the development and function of glial cells in the vertebrate nervous system. He completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1993 at Stanford University. As a graduate student with David Hogness at Stanford, Talbot investigated the genetic control of metamorphosis in Drosophila. As a postdoctoral fellow working with Charles Kimmel and John Postlethwait at the University of Oregon, he conducted molecular studies of genes that regulate early development in the zebrafish. Talbot became assistant professor at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine at New York University Medical Center in 1996, and in 1999, he joined the faculty at Stanford. He has received a Pew Scholars Award, a Rita Allen Foundation Scholars Award, and he was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

 

Explore more from The Transmitter

A crow looking at a screen showing a circle of white dots on a black background.

Crows have brains ‘in the fast lane’

The birds accurately complete decision-making tasks twice as fast as primates, although their endbrains look considerably different.

By Sarah Thau
22 October 2026 | 4 min read
A boy manipulates blocks at a table while sitting across from a woman taking notes.

Prevalence of profound autism declines with new definition

The updated, more precise definition used in a CDC study includes adaptive scores.

By Brianna Abbott
22 October 2026 | 5 min read

Is it time for neuroscience to shift its focus from a computational mind to a navigating mind?

Andrea Hiott explains her navigational approach to the mind, and why now is the time to embrace seemingly paradoxical findings in neuroscience.

By Paul Middlebrooks
21 October 2026 | 1 min read