After his PhD, he worked as a
postdoctoral fellow at
Harvard Medical School with
Gerald Fischbach. In 1981 he became an assistant professor in the Department of Neurobiology at
Harvard Medical School. In 1985 he joined the
Columbia University faculty where he worked for the remainder of his career and became Claire Tow Professor of Motor Neuron Disorders (in neuroscience). He was a co-recipient, with
Pasko Rakic and
Sten Grillner, of the inaugural
Kavli Prize for Neuroscience in 2008. He was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society in 1996. He won the Ralph W. Gerard Prize from the Society for Neuroscience in 2016. He was a fellow of the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Books Jessell is the co-editor, with
Eric R. Kandel and
James Schwartz, of the well-known textbook
Principles of Neural Science.
Misconduct investigation and firing On March 7, 2018, Jessell was removed from his post at Columbia University following what a Columbia statement described as "an investigation that revealed serious violations of university policies and values governing the behavior of faculty members in an academic environment". The university did not give details of the nature of the violations. The
Columbia Daily Spectator reported on April 12 that Jessell "was engaged in a relationship with a lab member under his supervision for years, violating University policies on consensual romantic and sexual relationships, before being removed from all administrative posts this past March". The newspaper subsequently reported that Jessell "was removed from his administrative post, following an investigation that found him responsible for sexual misconduct". It is reported Jessell was suffering symptoms of an aggressive neurodegenerative disease during this period. ==References==