Dr. Hobert studied biochemistry in Prof. Gerhard Krauss’ lab at the University of Bayreuth Germany from 1987-1992 and did his PhD thesis work with Axel Ullrich at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, for which he received a junior investigator prize from the Leopoldina (now German Academy of Sciences). He was a postdoc with Gary Ruvkun at Harvard Medical School/Mass.General Hospital from 1996-1999, where he started to study neuronal development and function in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. His postdoctoral work earned him the 10th Anniversary Award of the Human Frontiers in Science Program, which funded his work. He joined the faculty in the Department for Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University Medical Center in 1999 and was promoted to Associate Professor and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2005. In 2009, he received the Harland Winfield Mossman Award in Developmental Biology. His laboratory uses various genetic methods to study neuronal development and cell fate specification in C elegans.