Dr. Alkon received his undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1965 at the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his M.D. at Cornell University and finishing an internship in medicine at the Mt Sinai Hospital in New York, he joined the staff of the National Institutes of Health where during his 30-year career he became a Medical Director in the U.S. Public Health Service at the NINDS and Chief of the Laboratory of Adaptive Systems. In 1999, Dr. Alkon then became the founding Scientific Director of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute and occupies the Toyota Chair in Neuroscience at the Institute.

‍

In this position, he and his team conducted multidisciplinary research on the molecular and biophysical mechanisms of memory and memory dysfunction in psychiatric and neurological disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. He was also a Professor of Neurology at West Virginia University until September 2016. As an internationally recognized pioneer in research on brain-based neural networks and the molecular basis of memory, he has authored hundreds of scientific articles as well as several books including Memory Traces in the Brain by Cambridge University Press, and the popular book Memory’s Voice by Harper Collins.