Jonathan Roiser studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge, as an undergraduate, and remained there for his doctorate in the Department of Psychiatry. His PhD focused on the effects of monoamine depletions on mood and cognitive performance, with a particular emphasis on demonstrating that genetic variations can explain some of the variability commonly observed between individuals in their vulnerability to perturbations of the serotonin system. He then spent a year conducting a pharmacological fMRI study at the National Institute of Mental Health, USA, in patients recovered from depression and controls.

Following a post-doctoral appointment at the UCL Institute of Neurology, London, where he investigated the neural mechanisms underpinning psychotic phenomena and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, he was appointed to a faculty post at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and his laboratory is currently funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Leverhulme Trust. In 2008 he founded the UCL-NIMH Joint Doctoral Training Program in Neuroscience, which he co-directs. In 2020 he founded the UCL Wellcome 4-year PhD in Mental Health Science. His research interests remain focused on understanding the neurobiological basis of psychiatric symptoms, combining behavioural, psychopharmacological and genetic approaches with neuroimaging techniques. In the future he hopes to continue his work on understanding the sources of individual differences in responses to  pharmacological treatment in psychiatric conditions, particularly depression.