Walter Marcotti is a neuroscientist in the School of Biosciences and Co-Director of the cross-faculty Neuroscience Institute at the University of Sheffield. He obtained his PhD at the University of Pavia, Italy, and following his postdoctoral research at the Universities of Sussex and Bristol, he was awarded the Royal Society University Research Fellowship (RS-URF).
He leads a multidisciplinary research program dedicated to unravelling the cellular and molecular mechanisms underpinning the development and ageing of the mammalian auditory organ, and how signal processing at the primary auditory synapses enables the precise representation of sound. A particular focus has been the use of mouse models to reveal the physiological consequences associated with mutations in deafness genes and the implementation of AAV-based gene therapy for various forms of hearing impairment.
In addition to the RS-URF (2004-2012), he held two Wellcome Trust Investigator Awards and in 2011 he was the recipient of the Sharpey-Schafer Lecture/Prize. He is a Fellow of the Physiological Society (2017) and of the Royal Society of Biology (2022).
Professional position
- Professor of Sensory Neuroscience, School of Biosciences, University of Sheffield
