Alan L. Willard, Ph.D.

Dr. Alan L. Willard is Chief of the Scientific Review Branch and the Referral Officer for NINDS. Prior to becoming Chief, Dr. Willard was the Scientific Review Officer of the NINDS NSD-C study section. Before joining NINDS, he was a tenured faculty member at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of Cell & Molecular Physiology and the Curriculum in Neurobiology, where his research interests were in the areas of developmental neurobiology and synaptic physiology. He was also actively involved in graduate and medical student education at UNC, serving as a Director of Graduate Studies and a member of the Executive Board of the Graduate School.