Peter Penzes is the Ruth and Evelyn Dunbar Professor of Physiology, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Pharmacology, and Director of the Center for Autism and Neurodevelopment at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Dr. Penzes is a native of Romania, where he completed his Bachelor’s Degree in biochemistry at the University of Bucharest. After obtaining a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the State University of New York at Buffalo, he carried out postdoctoral studies in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, under the supervision of Drs.  Betty Eipper and Richard Huganir, respectively. Since 2003 he has been on the faculty at Northwestern. Dr. Penzes’ research, continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, is focused on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that control the development, remodeling, and disease of synapses, the connections between brain cells. Results of this work help us understand the neurobiological substrates of brain disorders like autism, intellectual disability, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease, and have been published in leading scientific journals. Dr. Penzes has served on multiple national and international review, editorial, and advisory boards and has contributed to the dissemination of new discoveries to the public.