Ben first knew he wanted to be a scientist when he was in kindergarten. He grew up in West Orange, NJ, one of four children in a low income family. He was at the top of his high school class in math and science, and attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on a scholarship. Ben planned to study chemistry or engineering in college, but when he took a neuroscience class, he knew he wanted to learn as much as he could about the human brain. He graduated from MIT in 1976, and went on to medical school at Dartmouth College, where he received his MD in 1979. 

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During his residency in clinical neurology, Ben grew increasingly frustrated with all the unknowns about the brain. He decided that the mystery must be hidden within the glial cells, which make up 90% of the brain. Ben was the first scientist to consider the importance of glial cells, or glia; for a long time, glia were considered like glue, simply working to hold the brain together. In order to cure neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, Ben realized he needed to learn more about glia. He went back to school, and as his first challenge, had to invent a way to grow the three different types of glial cells in a controlled environment, something that had never been done before. Ben succeeded in this challenge, and shared everything he learned, so that other scientists and researchers could learn from him and make new discoveries of their own.