21.07.2023 – 10:00
Non-profit Hertie Foundation
Frankfurt/Brussels (ots)
On the occasion of tomorrow’s World Brain Day, the non-profit Hertie Foundation and the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) are announcing the winners of the Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize 2023: Prof. Dr. Mackenzie W. Mathis and Prof. Dr. Alexander Mathis received the award, which is endowed with 100,000 euros, for their scientific achievements in the field of computational behavioral neuroscience. The Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize is awarded every two years to outstanding young scientists in brain research.
Mackenzie W. Mathis and Alexander Mathis are Assistant Professors at the Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne), where they lead their research groups. The focus of their joint work is on discovering the theoretical and neural bases of the mechanisms underlying the adaptive behavior of intelligent systems. Among other things, they developed DeepLabCut, the first computer vision tool for predicting animal movements that requires only a few input data. Considered a breakthrough in life sciences, this tool is used in over 1,000 leading companies, institutes and universities around the world.
“Mackenzie and Alexander Mathis have made outstanding contributions to the field of behavioral neuroscience – for the first time in the history of the award, we are honoring two neuroscientists together,” said Dr. Astrid Proksch, Managing Director of the non-profit Hertie Foundation. “With the Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize, we want to support their outstanding work and promote their scientific career.”
Mackenzie and Alexander Mathis commented on their award: “We are deeply honored to be recognized for our joint work developing computational tools for studying animal behavior. We thank the Hertie Foundation and FENS, and all the users of our open source tools, which enable us to contribute to many exciting neuroscientific discoveries.”
The Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize – named after the American neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel – will be officially awarded on June 28, 2024 at the FENS Forum in Vienna, where the winners will give the Eric Kandel Prize Lecture. The Hertie Foundation and FENS are awarding the EUR 100,000 prize for the eighth time. EUR 50,000 of this is earmarked for establishing scientific cooperation. The award jury consists of nine world-leading brain researchers, including three Nobel Prize winners for medicine.
Prof. Irene Tracey, President of FENS: “On behalf of FENS, I warmly congratulate Mackenzie and Alexander Mathis on being awarded the prestigious Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize for their exceptional achievements in advancing our understanding of adaptive animal behavior through the development of new tools and novel paradigms. The award is an important contribution to recognizing outstanding research in Europe and helping young neuroscientists to advance their careers.”
The Eric Kandel Young Neuroscientists Prize has been awarded every two years since 2010 by the Hertie Foundation in cooperation with FENS and is under the patronage of the Federal Minister of Education and Research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger.
Further information: www.ghst.de/kandel
Prof. Dr. Mackenzie W. Mathis, born in California, USA, holds the Bertarelli Endowed Chair in Integrative Neuroscience at EPFL. Previously, she ran her own lab at Harvard University as a Rowland Fellow (2017-2020) and completed her PhD at Harvard University in 2017. She is also an ELLIS Fellow, Vallee Fellow and former NSF Graduate Fellow. Her work has been featured in Nature, Bloomberg BusinessWeek and The Atlantic, among others.
Prof. Dr. Alexander Mathis, born in Bregenz, Austria, is Assistant Professor at EPFL for Computational Neuroscience and AI. Previously, he was a Marie Curie fellow at Harvard University and at the University of Tübingen. He completed his doctoral training at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (LMU) in 2012, having previously studied mathematics at the LMU. His work has been featured in Nature, The Atlantic and Quanta Magazine.
Hertie-Foundation The work of the Hertie-Foundation focuses on two main topics: researching the brain and strengthening democracy. The foundation’s projects provide exemplary impetus within these themes. The focus is always on people and the concrete improvement of their living conditions. The non-profit Hertie Foundation was established in 1974 by the heirs of the department store owner Georg Karg and is today one of the largest ideologically independent and entrepreneurially independent foundations in Germany. The name “Hertie” goes back to Hermann Tietz, co-founder of the department store group of the same name at the end of the 19th century. www.ghst.de
FENS The Federation of European Neuroscience Societies (FENS) is the most important neuroscience organization in Europe. It was founded in 1998 at the first Forum of European Neuroscience. Today it represents 43 European national and monodisciplinary member societies with 22,000 members from 33 European countries. www.fens.org
Press contact:
Non-profit Hertie Foundation, communication
Carmen Jacobi, Tel. +49 (0)69 66 07 56 155
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www.ghst.de
FENS, communication
Daniel Djamo, Ph.D.
Head of Communications
[email protected]
Original content from: Non-profit Hertie Foundation, transmitted by news aktuell