As Executive Director of the Janelia Research Campus and Vice President, Nelson Spruston is responsible for implementing the strategic vision of HHMI’s biomedical research complex in Ashburn, Virginia. Spruston oversees integrated, highly collaborative teams of biologists, computational and data scientists, and tool-builders who are using innovative methods to pursue a wide range of scientific questions.

In 2011, Spruston came to Janelia to lead the research campus’s science and training team. In 2022, he became Janelia’s Chief of Scientific Operations and Programs. Spruston also leads a lab at Janelia exploring the role of the hippocampus in learning and memory. In addition to investigating the neurobiological mechanisms of memory, Spruston is passionate about training and mentoring the next generation of scientists both within his lab and beyond.

Before joining HHMI, Spruston spent 16 years on the faculty at Northwestern University, where he was chair of the department of neurobiology and physiology. Prior to Northwestern, Spruston was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany. 

Spruston received a PhD in neuroscience from the Baylor College of Medicine and a BS in physiology from the University of British Columbia.