Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award

BJ Casey, PhD (right), of Barnard College was awarded the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023.

The Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes an individual with outstanding career achievements in neuroscience who has also significantly promoted the professional advancement of women in neuroscience.

Recipients receive a $5,000 prize and complimentary registration, transportation (economy air or ground), and two nights hotel accommodations for the SfN annual meeting. The SfN president presents the award at a lecture at the meeting.

For more information, please review the Awards and Prizes FAQs.

Nomination Criteria & Materials

Nomination Criteria:

• Nominations must be made or endorsed by an SfN member.
• Nominees do not need to be SfN members.
• Self-nomination is not permitted.
• No person may nominate more than one candidate.
• Current SfN officers and councilors are ineligible for nomination.
• Due to the potential conflicts of interest, members of the selection committee may not be the nominees and they cannot serve as nominators nor write letters of recommendation.

Nomination materials include the following:

• One nomination letter and a maximum of two optional letters of recommendation
• One letter must include a summary of key research accomplishments as well as a summary of mentoring, leadership, and service
• Current CV
• List of students and postdoctoral scholars who have been mentored by the nominee

Eligibility

• Nominees must have exhibited dedication to facilitating the mentoring and entry of early career women into neuroscience or to the advancement of women in neuroscience.
• Nominees must have sustained exceptional achievements in neuroscience as evidenced by publications, inventions, and/or awards.
• Nominees must have shown service to the profession through SfN and/or related organizations.
• Nominees must have received recognition at national or international levels as a scientist, educator, businessperson, or administrator in neuroscience.
• Nominees must have demonstrated a high degree of imagination, innovation, and initiative in the pursuit of neuroscience. 

Learn More About Past Award Winners

• 2024: Maria Grazia Spillantini, PhD
• 2023: BJ Casey, PhD
• 2022: Elizabeth Murray, PhD
• 2021: Catherine Dulac, PhD
• 2020: Kristen Harris, PhD and Yasmin Hurd, PhD
• 2019: Hollis T. Cline, PhD
• 2018: Erin Schuman, PhD
• 2017: Carol Mason, PhD
• 2016: Li-Huei Tsai, PhD
• 2014: Michela Gallager, PhD
• 2013: Xandra O. Breakefield, PhD
• 2012: Martha Constantine-Paton, PhD, and Michael J. Zigmond, PhD
• 2011: Margaret Livingstone, PhD
• 2010: Carol Barnes, PhD
• 2009: Carla Shatz, PhD
• 2008: Ben Barres, MD, PhD
• 2007: Huda Akil, PhD
• 2006: Ann Kelley, PhD
• 2005: Susan Leeman, PhD
• 2004: Martha Gillette, PhD
• 2003: Bernice Grafstein, PhD
• 2002: Eve Marder, PhD
• 2001: Leslie Ungerleider, PhD
• 2000: Mary Bartlett Bunge, PhD