Rui Costa, PhD, DVM, is a neuroscientist and President and CEO of the Allen Institute. His focus has been on understanding brain mechanisms that underly movement and learning. His laboratory develops and uses genetic, electrophysiological, optical, and behavioral approaches to investigate the neurobiology of action in health and disease. His laboratory uncovered fundamental neural circuit mechanisms in the basal ganglia underlying movement and learning, with particular insights into the role of different dopamine cell types, and the different projection pathways of the striatum. These findings have implications for movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease.

Dr. Costa received his D.V.M. from the University of Lisbon in 1996. He carried out his Ph.D. research with Dr. Alcino Silva at UCLA from 1998 to 2002, followed by postdoctoral work with Dr. Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University and research as a section chief at the National Institutes of Health. In 2009, Dr. Costa became an Investigator in the Champalimaud Neuroscience Program, and a Professor at Columbia University in 2016. He served as director of Champalimaud Research from 2014 to 2017. In 2017, Costa was named CEO of the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University in New York. Dr. Costa has received several awards such as the Ariëns Kappers Medal from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Young Investigator Award from SFN and is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, as well as the National Academy of Medicine.