About Rich

Richard Simerly is a graduate of The University of California, Berkeley, where he studied anatomy and physiology before joining Roger Gorski’s laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving a Ph.D. in 1984. He did postdoctoral research with Dr. Larry Swanson in the Developmental Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, and was appointed Senior Research Associate in its Neural Systems Laboratory. Dr. Simerly is an internationally recognized expert on hormonal control of brain development. His laboratory made several key discoveries in the field of sexual differentiation, including the first genetic evidence for the sufficiency of the Esr1 in sexual differentiation, the first demonstration that caspase activity is required for hormone-induced apoptotic neuronal death in the hypothalamus, and the first demonstration of target dependent sexual differentiation of limbic-hypothalamic connections. His laboratory also demonstrated that the fat-derived hormone leptin represents a significant factor directing development of essential components of hypothalamic circuits that control energy balance, and that the developmental actions of leptin suppress development of viscerosensory inputs to the hypothalamus. His current research is focused on understanding how the architecture of forebrain circuits that control body weight and energy metabolism is specified in response to endocrine and nutritional cues during defined neurodevelopmental critical periods, with direct implications for the developmental origins of obesity.

Before joining Vanderbilt University, Dr. Simerly was Professor of Pediatrics at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and Professor of Biological Sciences at USC. He was the founding Director of the Developmental Neuroscience Program in the Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and also served as Director of its Cellular Imaging Core Facility. Before joining the USC faculty, Dr. Simerly was Senior Scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center, and a faculty member of the Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon.