New Faculty Q&A: Greg Field

November 2, 2021

Greg Field is an assistant professor of neurobiology, a faculty network member of the Duke Institute for Brain Science, and now one of the newest members of FIP.

After earning his undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Puget Sound, Field completed his PhD in physiology and biophysics at the University of Washington before working as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He was then an assistant professor at the University of Southern California for three years before joining Duke’s faculty in 2015.

Field’s lab focuses on how the retina processes visual scenes and transmits this information to the brain.

What projects are you pursuing in which photonics helps push the research forward, and how does photonics play a role?

My laboratory studies how the retina, the light sensitive neural tissue at the back of the eye, encodes what we see. Every project in the lab uses photonics, because we always use light to stimulate the retina, and we frequently use fluorescence imaging techniques to measure neural activity.

What innovations in the realm of photonics within the past five years that have made an impact on your research?

The technologies we use in terms of photonics are relatively standard: OLED video displays, DMD-based projectors and lasers.

Do you foresee any emerging photonics innovations impacting your research in the next five years?

I am hopeful that holographic technologies for projecting complex patterns of light into neural circuits to manipulate their activity will be commonplace tools for studying the brain and the visual system.

Why did you join FIP and how do you hope your new affiliation will help your research goals?

The diversity of photonics research in FIP makes it a very appealing institute to join. I anticipate the unanticipated: novel and unforeseen collaborations will emerge, I think, by participating in the events that are hosted and sponsored by FIP.