Jian Li, a postdoctoral fellow at New York University, has been awarded the Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award in Neuroscience.
The award, given by the Society for Neuroscience (SfN), recognizes two young scientists for their outstanding research and educational pursuit in an international setting. Li shares the award, which is supported by the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and includes $25,000 for each recipient, with Xin Jin, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
"The Society believes it is important for the community to recognize talented young scientists like Dr. Li and Dr. Jin," said Susan G. Amara, president of SfN. "Their cutting-edge work on the brain circuits' underlying learning and behavior demonstrates the exceptional creativity needed to maintain progress in the field."
Li is a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of NYU Professor Elizabeth Phelps. His research is focused on understanding how people learn and make decisions, and his training in computational neuroscience has been instrumental in studies characterizing the complementary roles of the amygdala and striatum in associative learning. Li's work is also concerned with examining how neural systems of reward processing and decision-making can be altered by additional information such as social factors, previous choices, and knowledge. Li, who completed his doctoral studies at Baylor College of Medicine, is a native of China and plans to return there next year to start a faculty position at Peking University.