Society for Neuroscience Announces Achievement Awards
SAN DIEGO — The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) announced the winners of the achievement awards during Neuroscience 2010, SfN’s annual meeting and the world’s largest source of emerging news on brain science and health.
“The achievement awards provide SfN members with a chance to recognize colleagues who have demonstrated a profound commitment to career achievement and the advancement of women in neuroscience,” said Michael E. Goldberg, MD, president of SfN.
Bernice Grafstein Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Mentoring: Janet Neisewander, PhD
The Bernice Grafstein Award recognizes individuals for dedication to promoting women’s advancement in neuroscience, specifically by mentoring women to facilitate their entry and retention in the field. This award is supported by Bernice Grafstein, PhD, who was the first woman president of SfN. The award, established in 2009, includes complimentary registration and transportation to SfN’s annual meeting along with a $2,000 monetary award.
Janet Neisewander’s research focuses on behavioral neuroscience, particularly the mechanisms of drug addiction. She is a faculty member of the neuroscience graduate program and professor in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University (ASU). Neisewander is a leader in recruiting women graduate students and faculty members at ASU and serves as a dedicated mentor to her students and colleagues. She has served on several review panels for the National Institutes of Health and has worked tirelessly to improve the university’s neuroscience program. Neisewander earned her PhD from the University of Kentucky in 1988.
Career Development Award: Roi Cohen Kadosh, PhD and Gabriel Kreiman, PhD
Supported by Merck & Company, Inc., the Career Development Award recognizes promise and achievement in the neuroscience field for early career professionals. The award includes complimentary SfN annual meeting registration and a monetary prize of $2,000.
Roi Cohen Kadosh’s research is concerned with the neural basis of number representation in the parietal cortex. He has developed novel theories on numerical cognition and has mastered diverse methods to investigate this issue, including functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Cohen Kadosh is currently working with his lab to provide a better understanding of developmental and educational failures in numerical processing using behavioral and brain stimulation methods.
Gabriel Krieman is engaged in cross-disciplinary research, applying computational analysis methods to questions in neuroscience and molecular genomics. His work on the brain’s visual system focuses on extracting information from recorded responses of cells engaged in object recognition. Krieman is also investigating DNA sequences that regulate gene expression in the visual cortex.
Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award: Jill Becker, PhD
The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award honors an individual working outside of neuroscience in promoting the professional advancement of women in the field through organizational leadership, teaching, and public advocacy. This award includes complimentary SfN annual meeting registration and travel expenses.
Jill Becker has demonstrated a commitment to the advancement of women in neuroscience and the broader scientific community, according to the selection committee. She has worked with national and international organizations to promote women scientists, played a key role in developing more transparent and egalitarian promotion policies at the University of Michigan, and focused her own research on understanding the biology of females. Currently, Becker helps lead committees dedicated to supporting women in neuroscience, including the Isis Fund. She is also co-chair of SfN’s Program Development Committee and the chair of the Women in Neuroscience subcommittee.
Becker received her PhD from the University of Illinois in 1980. She has dedicated her scientific career to investigating the interaction of neuroscience and endocrinology in the regulation of female behavior. Becker continues to be a champion of female-focused research and applying those discoveries to broader human research.
Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award: Carol Barnes, PhD
Established in 2000, the Mika Salpeter Award recognizes individuals with outstanding career achievements in neuroscience who have also actively promoted the professional advancement of women in neuroscience. The award includes a $5,000 prize for the recipient.
Carol Barnes, a past president of SfN, was selected to receive the award for her care and dedication as a researcher and a mentor. Her commitment to the professional development of her trainees demonstrates her desire to further the advancement of women in neuroscience.
Barnes’ pioneering research has been instrumental in providing insight into the basic mechanisms of age-related and memory impairment. After earning her PhD in Psychology at Carleton University in 1977, Barnes began publishing seminal studies detailing the changes in neuronal structure and function in aging rodents and primates. Her exceptional scientific contributions have garnered recognition from the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer’s Disease Association, and multiple journals spanning the field of neuroscience.
The Society for Neuroscience is an organization of more than 40,000 researchers and clinicians who study the brain and nervous system.
