Andrew King

Neural Coding and Plasticity in the Auditory System

I am the Director of the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics and head of the Oxford Auditory Neuroscience Group. Our research combines behavioural, electrophysiological, imaging and optogenetic approaches to study how the auditory brain adapts to the rapidly changing statistics that characterize real-life soundscapes, integrates other sensory and motor-related signals, and learns to compensate for the altered auditory inputs resulting from peripheral hearing impairment.

I obtained a BSc in physiology from King’s College London and was a PhD student at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. I moved to Oxford in 1984 as a Science and Engineering Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow and, two years later, became a Lister Institute Research Fellow. This was also based in Oxford, but included a spell as a visiting scientist at the Eye Research Institute in Boston. In 1991, I became a Wellcome Senior Research Fellow, which was renewed in both 1996 and 2001, and then a Wellcome Principal Research Fellow in 2006. I was awarded the Wellcome Prize in Physiology in 1990 and elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2011, The Physiological Society in 2017, and The Royal Society in 2018.

Most of my research funding comes through my Wellcome Principal Research Fellowship, with additional funding from the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, and graduate studentship support from the Wellcome Trust, Action on Hearing Loss, and the University of Oxford.

I am the Director of the University of Oxford Doctoral Training Programme in Neuroscience and Course Director of the one-year MSc in Neuroscience and a Sir Henry Savile Fellow at Merton College. I am a Senior Editor at eLife, and have previously served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Physiology, Journal of Neuroscience and Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. I have been a member of various Interview Committees at Wellcome and at the Royal Society, and am currently a permanent member of the Royal Society Research Grants Board: Biological Sciences. I am also the 'President' of the Scientific Advisory Board of L'Institut de l’Audition in Paris.