Dr. Yoland Smith received a PhD degree from Laval University (Quebec, Canada) in 1988. After postdoctoral training at Oxford University (Oxford, England) and Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Maryland), he was appointed assistant professor of anatomy at Laval University. In 1996, he joined the faculty of Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia), where he is currently Rollins Chair of Neuroscience, professor and vice-chair of faculty affairs in neurology and chief of the Division of Neuropharmacology and Neurological Disorders at the Emory National Primate Research Center. His research has been continuously funded by the NIH. He is a member of Emory’s Udall Center of Excellence in Parkinson’s Disease Research and he has published more than 250 manuscripts on the pathophysiology of parkinsonism and related disorders. He is co-editor-in-chief of the European Journal of Neuroscience. He is also principal investigator of the NIH raining grant that supports Emory’s graduate program in neuroscience.