Dr. Nicolas Pégard, an optical engineer in the Department of Applied Physical Sciences, has been promoted to associate professor and awarded tenure by the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost.

Dr. Pégard, who has an affiliation with the UNC Neuroscience Center, runs the Computational Biophotonics Laboratory, which develops advanced optical instrumentation for applications in biology, neuroscience and medicine. His primary research is in neurosciences where he explores technologies that monitor and manipulate neural activity using optogenetics.

He was named a 2023 Research Fellow in Neuroscience by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Sloan fellowship is one of the most prestigious awards available to early-career researchers in recognition for their distinguished performance as independent scientists and for their unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

Before joining the UNC faculty in 2019, Dr. Pégard earned a Ph.D. in computational imaging from Princeton University and received postdoctoral training in neurosciences at U.C. Berkeley. 

January 27, 2025