Professor Simon Fisher

Simon E. Fisher is director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor of Language and Genetics at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Simon obtained his Natural Sciences degree at Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, UK followed by a DPhil at the Genetics Unit of the Biochemistry Department, Oxford University. For his postdoctoral research, he joined Professor Anthony Monaco's group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG) in Oxford, and worked on identifying genetic factors that contribute to developmental disorders such as dyslexia and speech and language impairments. During this time, he and his colleagues discovered FOXP2, the first case of a gene mutated in speech and language impairment. In 2010, he was appointed director of a new department specifically devoted to "Language and Genetics" at the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen.

His research has a strong interdisciplinary remit, integrating data from genetics and genomics, psychology, neuroscience, developmental biology and evolutionary anthropology. Simon is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, and his awards include the Francis Crick Medal and Lecture in 2008, and the inaugural Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize in 2009.