John Hildebrand

As a young man, neurobiologist John Hildebrand was torn between his love of science and his passion for playing music. So he chose to live a dual life, working as a professional musician by night and leading innovative scientific studies of the insect nervous system by day. Using the moth Manduca sexta as a model, Hildebrand has explored the connection between olfaction--the sense of smell--and behavior. His work has revealed unexpected links between smell perception and brain development, as well as the role of smell in feeding and host selection--an area of research that's critical to human health because it plays a role in vector-borne diseases like malaria. John Hildebrand is a Regents' professor of neuroscience at the University of Arizona. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2007.