Quick Facts
Biography
Robert T. Gerlai (Gerlai Róbert, Budapest, 1960) is a Hungarian-born Canadian behaviour geneticist. He obtained his PhD in 1987 from the Eötvös Loránd University and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest. He has worked in the biotechnology (Genentech) and biopharmaceutical research industries (Eli Lilly and Company and Saegis Pharmaceuticals) as senior scientist and executive as well as at different universities. Currently, he is full professor of psychology at the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. The Web of Science lists over 180 peer-reviewed publications for him, which have been cited over 8000 times, resulting in an h-index of 47. Gerlai has worked with several different animal species, including paradise fish and mice. He has been using zebrafish in his research for the past 15 years, and studies the effects of alcohol on brain function and behaviour, including social behaviour, fear-anxiety, and learning and memory.
Honors
Gerlai is an elected Fellow of the International Behavioral Neuroscience Society, of which he also has been president. He is a member of the editorial boards of Genes, Brain and Behavior, Neurotoxicology and Teratology, Learning and Behavior, and Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. He is section editor for behavioral neuroscience of BMC Neuroscience. In 2013, Gerlai received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the International Behavioural and Neural Genetics Society. In 2015 he received the Research Excellence Award from the University of Toronto.