CCN Research Scientist Alex Williams Named McKnight Scholar

The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience has selected Associate Research Scientist Alex Williams of the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Neuroscience as a 2025 McKnight Scholar. The McKnight Scholar Awards are granted to young scientists who are in the early stages of establishing their own independent laboratories and research careers and have demonstrated a commitment to neuroscience.

Williams receives the award for his work developing new computational methods to capture unique patterns of neural activity, aiming to distinguish between healthy variability and signs of dysfunction. These methods can track moment-to-moment changes in neutral activity response amplitude, timing and recurring sequences, all of which may underlie processes such as learning, attention and decision-making. His methods can also record how sensory and behavioral inputs modulate neural activity.

Williams holds a joint appointment as an assistant professor at the Center for Neural Science at New York University. He completed his postdoctoral work in statistics at Stanford University, where he obtained his Ph.D. in neuroscience. He previously held roles at Google Brain, Sandia National Labs, the Salk Institute and Brandeis University.