Stephen Liberles

Stephen Liberles is a Professor in the Cell Biology Department at Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research focuses on the molecular neuroscience of sensory systems. Liberles received an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Harvard in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard in 1999, working in the lab of Stuart Schreiber. He then performed post-doctoral work in the lab of Linda Buck, first at Harvard Medical School and then at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He discovered two families of olfactory receptors and charted how the vagus nerve controls physiology and behavior. His studies of sensory neurons in the airways, cardiovascular system, and gut led to the identification of novel body-brain reflexes, sensory receptors and mechanisms underlying classical reflexes, and key features of how bodily signals are organized in the brain.