Carol A. Mason, Ph.D.

Carol Mason is Professor of Pathology and Cell Biology, Neuroscience, and Ophthalmic Science at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, and a principal investigator in the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, at Columbia University. Trained in biology and invertebrate zoology at Chatham College and UC Berkeley, she has spent her career chronicling the development of innervation of the cerebellum and the pathway from eye to brain in higher vertebrates. Current work focuses on the molecular signals for retinal ganglion cell differentiation during the formation of the binocular circuit, and the alterations of these processes in the albino retina and melanin-deficient retinal pigment epithelium that lead to impaired stereovision.

At Columbia, Mason has been a co-director of the Doctoral Program in Neurobiology & Behavior and is current director of a NIH/NEI T32 training program in Vision Sciences. She is Chair of Interschool Planning at the Zuckerman Institute, fostering faculty recruitment, mentoring, and scientific interchange across Columbia’s campuses. Mason is a member of the National Academies of Medicine and Science, was President of the Society for Neuroscience 2013-2014, and has been a Simons Senior Fellow since 2014. Her abiding passion is guiding the training of the next generation of scientists.