Timothy A. Ryan received his PhD in physics in the laboratory of Watt Webb at Cornell University before transitioning into cellular and molecular neuroscience as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. During this time, he pioneered optical approaches for examining the recycling of synaptic vesicles (structures that release neurotransmitters) in neurons in the central nervous system. He established his laboratory in the department of biochemistry at Weil Cornell Medical School. In 2005 he was named a Rockefeller/Sloan-Kettering/Cornell Tri-Institutional Professor and in 2017 an HHMI Janelia Research Campus Scholar. Over the last 25 years, his lab has developed quantitative optical approaches to interrogate the molecular underpinnings of nerve terminal function. He was named an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow, is a recipient of the Javitz Investigator award, twice received the McKnight Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.