NB&B offers a broad range of courses and research opportunities for undergraduate students, making it the most popular biology concentration at Cornell.
The associated graduate field of Neurobiology and Behavior encompasses all aspects of neuroscience and behavioral research on Cornell’s Ithaca campus. The graduate program's goal is to advance the understanding of neurobiology and behavior by training the next generation of scientists working at this exciting interface.
Academic Resources
Spotlight on BIONB2210/2220
Our teaching mission is to integrate research themes into two flagship courses, BioNB 2210 (Introduction to Behavior) and BioNB 2220 (Introduction to Neuroscience), and to explore them in greater depth in our upper level courses. In the videos below, NBB faculty instructors give an overview of the structure and significance of these two keystone courses:
Student Spotlight: Eliza Baird-Daniel '15
A recent Cornell graduate with a concentration in NBB, Eliza Baird-Daniel fondly remembers her time participating in research in the lab of Professor Jesse Goldberg:
"Dr. Goldberg, in particular, has been an incredible source of encouragement and guidance. I am so honored to have worked with someone who is such a remarkable teacher, and has allowed me the intellectual power and freedom to design experiments and explore scientific questions."
Profiles of Recent NBB Alums
NBB News
Five from Cornell named 2026 Sloan Research Fellows
Five Cornell faculty members are among 126 early-career researchers across North America who have won 2026 Sloan Research Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Weiss and Provost awards honor outstanding faculty
Mark Sarvary, Ph.D. ’06, senior lecturer of neurobiology and behavior in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences receives The Stephen H. Weiss Teaching Award.
Scientists Released Caged Mice Into the Wild, And an Incredible Thing Happened
Cornell Researchers are studying mice in an outside enclosure where they are allowed to roam freely. As quoted by Matthew Zipple, postdoctoral researcher in the neurobiology and behavior department, "We put them in the field for a week, and they returned to their original levels of anxiety behavior"
In lab mice rehomed to fields, anxiety is reversed
When postdoctoral researcher Matthew Zipple releases lab mice into a large, enclosed field just off Cornell’s campus, something remarkable happens.
Boosting Sleep Ripples Helps Preserve Memories Normally Forgotten
Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz, assistant professor and Nancy and Peter Meinig Family Investigator in the Life Sciences of neurobiology and behavior and Azahara Oliva, assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior found a pattern of ripples in Brain activty during sleep that affects memories. Azahara Oliva said, “This study advance our understanding of memory processing in the brain". Antonio Fernandez-Ruiz is quoted as saying, “Ripples are mediating the transfer of memory from the initial encoding in the hippocampus to long-term stable storage in the neocortex” Read the entire story in Neuroscience News.
Brain stimulation during sleep boosts weak memories in mice
The mice could remember new experiences that would normally be forgotten – a finding with important implications for treating Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor emeritus Howard Howland, expert on eyes, dies at 92
Howard Howland, Ph.D. ’68, a neurophysiologist who studied the eyes of humans and animals, died Oct. 26 in Ithaca. He was 92.
Neurotech symposium explores how brain circuits drive behavior
The event was an example of Cornell’s interdisciplinary commitment to advancing the frontiers of neurotechnology.