Dr. Williams is Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine, 1999. The main goal of his work will be to investigate fundamental human cognitive processes such as language and social behavior and to develop novel approaches for treating disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, anarthria and dyslexia in which communication is often affected. Towards these goals, the work will use advanced techniques such as ultrahigh-resolution single-neuronal recordings and computational modeling to study core cognitive processes at a basic cellular scale. The ultimate goal of the research will be to aid in developing new technologies for restoring motor and communicative deficits and for building new neural prosthetic approaches capable of creating synthetic speech and artificial movement. Together, these efforts promise to improve our understanding and treatment of individuals with language, psychosocial and developmental disorders.