William Stauffer, PhD, is an assistant professor in the department of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh. He is an expert in the neurophysiology of reward learning and decision making. Dr. Stauffer developed techniques to enable cell-type specific synthesis of optogenetic tools in nonhuman primates and used these to show that activation of dopamine neurons drives value-based learning. The Stauffer lab is dedicated to understanding the cell type-specific computations that enable cognition, emotion and movement. A major part of this effort includes elucidating cell types in the primate brain and developing cell-type specific tools for circuit-based investigations and targeted therapeutic approaches. Dr. Stauffer earned BS and PhD degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Cambridge in the lab of Wolfram Schultz. He won the NIH Directors New Innovator award in 2016.