Emma Wood is professor in the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research and a member of the Simons Institute for the Developing Brain at the University of Edinburgh. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of British Columbia in 1992 and carried out postdoctoral work in the Weeks lab at the University of Oregon (1993–95) and in the Eichenbaum lab at Boston University (1996–99). She joined the faculty at the University of Edinburgh in 1999.

The Wood lab studies the neural systems and circuits mediating spatial cognition and memory, and how they are affected in rat models of neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs). The lab probes this using electrophysiological recording techniques for measuring the activity of individual neurons and neuronal populations in awake freely behaving rats, combined with behavioral tasks designed to measure specific cognitive abilities. Wood’s team is particularly interested in how spatially tuned neurons in the brain such as place cells and head direction cells support spatial cognition, memory, and cognitive flexibility, and how the juvenile development and function of these circuits are affected in rat models of NDDs.