Barry J. Dickson FRS (born 14 August 1962) is an Australian neurobiologist who studies the development of neuronal networks in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

He received a second bachelor of science with honors in 1987 for his thesis about “Interactions between multiple operator sites controlling transcription of the aroFtyrA operon of Escherichia coli K-12”.

Following this, Dickson took up research for a PhD at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, where he worked in the lab of Ernst Hafen on the visual system development of Drosophila.

In 2005, he published a key paper in which he described a master gene for sex specific behavior in fruit flies, which stimulated discussions beyond the scientific community.

Dickson continued his studies of fruit fly mating behavior to help uncover how the brain processes information and makes decisions.