Professor Wilson received his BS in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, his MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and his PhD. in Computation and Neural Systems from the California Institute of Technology.  He joined the faculty at MIT in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 1994 where he studies the role of sleep in learning and memory, and brain systems that contribute to spatial navigation, and decision-making, and their possible involvement in neurological diseases and disorders through the use of microelectrode arrays implanted in the brains of freely behaving rodents.  He is currently Associate Director of The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, and Associate Director of the Center for Brains Minds and Machines.