Kirk G. Thompson, Ph.D.
Perception and Action Section Chief
Biography
Dr. Thompson received his B.S. degree in 1987 from Brigham Young University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah in 1992 where he worked with Audie Leventhal studying form, motion, and color processing from the retina and lateral geniculate nucleus to the visual cortex. During a postdoctoral fellowship with Jeffrey Schall at Vanderbilt University, and as a research assistant professor at Vanderbilt, he investigated how the brain selects targets for attention and eye movements and how visual awareness emerges from neural activity. Dr. Thompson joined the NEI as an Investigator in 2000. His laboratory studies the neural processes in the visuomotor system that convert sensory signals into perceptual experience and behavior.