WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) will present this year’s Early Career Awards to 10 neuroscientists whose early career discoveries have already transformed the field. The recipients of the Early Career Awards will be honored during SfN’s annual meeting.
“Despite just launching their careers, these innovative individuals are creating lasting impressions on the field,” said SfN President Nicholas C. Spitzer, PhD. “The Society is excited to recognize their efforts and to see how these groundbreaking researchers will continue to generate new technology and models, explore the brain in unprecedented ways, and bring together different fields to yield new approaches to understanding the brain.”
Jennifer N. Bourne Prize in Neuronal and Synaptic Structure and Function: Leila Elabbady
The Jennifer N. Bourne Prize in Neuronal and Synaptic Structure and Function is funded by Kristen M. Harris and recognizes a scientist for outstanding work that advances the understanding of synapses in neural circuits and connectomics at the nanometer scale. The awardee must be either an early career tenure-track neuroscientist or a nontenure-track research scientist at any stage of their career. The recipient receives a $5,000 prize and complimentary registration and travel for the SfN annual meeting.
Leila Elabbady, PhD, a research scientist at the Allen Institute, is an exceptional computational neuroscientist whose contributions bridge advanced machine learning with large-scale connectomics to uncover how neural circuits are organized. Her doctoral research applied computational methods to study neural circuits in both mice and fruit flies. Elabbady’s first project developed a new analytic approach to systematically identify cell types within a large electron microscopy dataset from the visual cortex of the mouse. By showing that features like nuclear morphology and perisomatic synapse density can reliably predict cell identity, her work enabled scalable cell-type classification in volumetric connectome datasets without the costly and time-consuming proofreading that had previously been required. The method has since underpinned many of the discoveries using the MICrONS dataset. Elabbady’s second project was focused on the fruit fly nervous system. She used connectomics to generate specific predictions about animal behavior by densely mapping the somatotopic organization of the leg circuit from the periphery to the central nervous system. Elabbady revealed how the structural organization of this circuit directly supports spatially targeted grooming, which connects anatomy to behavior in concrete, testable terms. Her trajectory promises more transformative advances.
Donald B. Lindsley Prize in Behavioral Neuroscience: Shannon Schiereck and Dionnet L. Bhatti Mazo
The Donald B. Lindsley Prize is endowed by the Grass Foundation and recognizes young neuroscientists’ outstanding PhD theses in the general area of behavioral neuroscience. Recipients each receive a $5,000 prize and complimentary registration and travel for the SfN annual meeting.
Shannon Schiereck, PhD, now a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago, made seminal discoveries about how the orbitofrontal cortex contributes to state inference during her doctoral research at New York University. Her thesis raised the bar for studies of cognition in animal models due to its rigor, deep characterization of behavior and consideration of alternative models, interplay between theory and experiments, and unusual clarity of results. Schiereck helped develop a task to probe how neuronal circuits in the rat brain support decision-making in the face of uncertainty. The task revealed how much rats valued water rewards of different sizes based on how long they were willing to wait for them. Schiereck analyzed the behavior of 350 rats in the task and devised rich statistical analyses to characterize their behavioral strategies. She then inactivated the orbitofrontal cortex in expert animals, revealing that the region is required for rats to update their beliefs based on experience. She also established methodologies to record from chronically implanted probes in freely moving rats, revealing signatures of inference at the single-neuron level and demonstrating circuit-level computations and the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in decision-making algorithms.
Dionnet L. Bhatti Mazo, PhD, now a postdoctoral associate at The Rockefeller University, addressed the fundamental behavioral problem of how the brain transforms sensory information about threat into context-appropriate action during his thesis work at Harvard University. Since the discovery a century ago that damage to the lateral septum disrupts an animal’s ability to adaptively respond to its environment, questions about how the lateral septum performs the computation and how it shapes defensive behavior have remained unanswered. Using calcium imaging, optogenetic and chemogenetic manipulations, transcriptomics, and behavioral analyses, Bhatti identified a population of lateral septum neurons that links learned threat cues to adaptive defensive behavior. Crucially, the neurons encode distinct features of threat-related information from two pathways, one from the hippocampus and one from the hypothalamus, that target functionally and anatomically distinct subsets of lateral septum neurons. The centerpiece finding that adaptive behavior emerges from feature-specific encoding within a single, anatomically discrete inhibitory population has already changed how the field thinks about defensive circuits, internal-state modulation, and the neural basis for action selection. Research from Bhatti Mazo’s thesis, published as a landmark Nature paper, places him among the strongest young behavioral neuroscientists of his generation.
Nemko Prize in Cellular or Molecular Neuroscience: Airi Yoshimoto
The Nemko Prize in Cellular or Molecular Neuroscience, supported by the Nemko family, recognizes an early career neuroscientist whose outstanding PhD thesis advances understanding of molecular, genetic, or cellular mechanisms underlying higher brain function and cognition. The recipient receives a $2,500 prize and complimentary registration and travel for the SfN annual meeting.
Airi Yoshimoto, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, completed her doctoral thesis at The University of Tokyo, where she consistently demonstrated intellectual curiosity, technical rigor, and a profound dedication to uncovering the neural mechanisms underlying brain-body interactions. She studies the neural mechanisms underlying voluntary control of heart rate, as practiced by some free divers and yogis, with potential applications to biofeedback-based interventions. To conduct this research, Yoshimoto developed a rodent experimental system for self-regulated heart rate using biofeedback-based operant learning. Her work identified a neural pathway supporting learned control of heart rate and provided fundamental insights into the top-down control of the autonomic nervous system. She continues to expand on these discoveries by investigating similar brain activity patterns in humans and rodents. She is also developing noninvasive stimulation protocols to mimic the parasympathetic-dominant brain state associated with lowered heart rate. Yoshimoto’s thesis pioneered a new approach to studying voluntary control of heart rate, and her expertise in neural circuit analysis, clinical perspective, and dedication to translational research allow her to continue to advance the understanding of how neural mechanisms regulate homeostasis and influence treatment outcomes.
Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award: Simon Haziza, Zetian Yang, and Abdulraheem Nashef
The Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award, supported by the Gruber Foundation, recognizes up to three early career neuroscientists for outstanding research and educational pursuit in an international setting. Recipients are each awarded a $25,000 prize and complimentary registration and travel for the SfN annual meeting.
Simon Haziza, PhD, a research scientist at Stanford University, developed optical technologies that gave direct access to previously inaccessible forms of fast electrical dynamics in the brains of behaving animals. Born in France, Haziza trained as a nanotechnology engineer at École Centrale Lyon. During his doctoral work at École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, he developed a nanoparticle-based imaging approach that measured intracellular transport dynamics in neurons with unprecedented spatiotemporal precision. With this approach, he identified transport abnormalities in pharmacological and genetic models of brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. Haziza then moved to the United States for his postdoctoral training at Stanford University. There, he helped develop a new generation of optical voltage imaging technologies that measure the electrical activity of genetically defined neuronal populations in vivo with exceptional sensitivity and spatiotemporal resolution. These include a high-speed microscope that can simultaneously image spiking and subthreshold dynamics of multiple hippocampal neuron types in behaving mice; a highly sensitive fiber-optic photometry system built for voltage-sensing studies in freely moving mice; and a fluorescence mesoscope that can image spatial patterns of cell-type-specific voltage oscillations across nearly the entire mouse cortical surface. Using this mesoscope approach in the hippocampus of awake mice, Haziza discovered three previously unknown forms of traveling voltage waves. Haziza’s work makes it possible to study spiking, oscillations, and waves across multiple neuron types in healthy and diseased animals.
Zetian Yang, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at New York University Grossman School of Medicine, has made breakthrough discoveries in two different fields during his graduate and postgraduate studies. During his thesis work at Rockefeller University, he investigated face processing in macaque monkeys and discovered that neurons in the middle dorsal face area of the temporal cortex are selective for face motion and can decode subtle social cues like gaze shift and facial expressions, independent of head movement. This work revised established models of the face-processing system, with implications for understanding differences in social processing associated with autism. As a postdoctoral fellow, he developed a methodology to record from vocalizing parrots, the first to ever do so. His population-level recordings in the vocal motor nucleus of freely behaving parrots revealed a vocal motor map that shares functional properties with speech production circuits in humans, an exciting finding that was featured in nearly 400 media outlets around the world. This unprecedented convergence established a novel and tangible model for investigating flexible speech production and communication disorders. Yang’s scientific curiosity, experimental skills, and innovative thinking allow him to continue to leave his mark on biomedical science.
Abdulraheem Nashef, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado, is a rising star in the field of motor control and systems neuroscience. In his thesis work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Nashef studied the way cerebellar signals modulate and time motor actions. To do this, he developed a novel method for reversible activation and inactivation of the cerebellar-thalamo-cortical (CTC) pathway in behaving monkeys. This approach allowed him to document the way cerebellar information modulates motor cortical activity from the cellular level to its functional implications and shed new light on the operation of the CTC pathway in controlling the temporal properties of voluntary motor actions. During his postdoctoral studies, Nashef extended his research on the cerebellar control of motor output by examining the circuitry that mediates those interactions in mice. Nashef also discovered a specific subset of cerebellar neurons that encode sensory predictions and project to a region of the brain that computes error. Nashef has also overcome immense challenges as an Arab Israeli who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community and serves as a role model and mentor to other scientists from marginalized communities.
SfN Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Young Investigator Award: Vineet Augustine
The SfN Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Young Investigator Award recognizes the outstanding achievements and contributions by an early career neuroscientist who has demonstrated scholarly independence. The award is co-sponsored by the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute and SfN. The recipient receives a $25,000 award and complimentary registration and travel for the SfN annual meeting.
Vineet Augustine, PhD, an assistant professor at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), has pushed forward the relatively new field of cardioception, published landmark papers, and drawn public attention for his research. During his graduate work at the California Institute of Technology, Augustine established the median preoptic nucleus as the brain’s central thirst integrator and identified a group of neurons that function as gulp sensors, helping explain how drinking suppresses thirst before fluid absorption. He also revealed the distributed, multi-organ architecture of thirst satiation, demonstrating that the brain treats reward and homeostasis as separate processes. In his independent work at UCSD, Augustine moved on to major questions in cardiovascular medicine. He identified a population of vagal sensory neurons that may be responsible for fainting via the first genetically defined neural pathway connecting the heart ventricles to the brainstem. He then showed that activating these neurons is sufficient to trigger cardiovascular collapse in mice and demonstrated how a peripheral organ directly modulates brain-wide activity and consciousness. Additionally, Augustine revealed that a previously unknown triple-node circuit connecting the heart, brain, and immune system contributes to cardiac damage following heart attacks and that blocking any of these nodes reduces damage and improves cardiac function in mice.
Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award: Vikram Gadagkar and Brian M. Sweis
The Janett Rosenberg Trubatch Career Development Award, supported by the Trubatch family, recognizes originality and creativity in research and promotes success during academic transitions prior to tenure. Two recipients each receive a $2,000 award and complimentary registration to SfN’s annual meeting.
Vikram Gadagkar, PhD, an assistant professor at Columbia University and Freeman Hrabowski Scholar at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is an exceptional and innovative systems neuroscientist who is performing groundbreaking research on dopaminergic signaling, motor learning, and the effects of social interactions on learning. During his postdoctoral work, Gadagkar addressed the longstanding question of how performance is evaluated as good or bad during practice. He found that dopamine neurons stop firing when birds perceive they have unexpectedly sung the wrong note and increase their firing when they have unexpectedly sung the correct note. This work represented the first direct recording from ventral tegmental area neurons that project to the basal ganglia in birds and the first direct evidence that dopamine neurons encode a performance prediction error. Gadagkar then found that dopaminergic error signals in male bird brains are reduced or suppressed when they sing to females, the first evidence that this error signaling can be modulated by social context. At Columbia, Gadagkar found that dopamine neurons guide vocal learning in juvenile songbirds, showing that natural behavior can be learned through dopamine-mediated reinforcement. He is also developing the female songbird brain as a new model system for studying how others’ actions are evaluated. In this domain, he has discovered that HVC, a sensorimotor brain region in female songbirds, links perception, internal expectations, and vocal responses during mate evaluation. Gadagkar’s perspective will prove valuable to broader thinking about questions of learning, variability, and connections with behavior.
Brian M. Sweis, MD, PhD, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, combines clinical psychiatry with translational cross-species neuroeconomics to study how the brain makes decisions in health and psychiatric disorders. His cross-species work on how the brain makes complex decisions and how these processes are altered in mental illnesses is transformative and offers a reimagined perspective in behavioral neuroscience and mental health research. He has made groundbreaking discoveries on the origins of complex cognitive and emotional processes previously thought to be unique to humans. To support this work, he helped develop novel versions of Restaurant Row and other decision-making tasks for rodents to investigate how they evaluate offers, reconsider decisions, and respond to time already invested in pursuing a reward. Sweis was early to appreciate that decision-making may have deep evolutionary origins in foraging, reproductive, and defensive behaviors, and he hopes this work will clarify how adaptive cellular processes contribute to maladaptive behavior and mental health disorders such as addiction and depression. Sweis’s work in decision neuroscience is already having a far reach into many areas of disease, including extending to brain-body connections and how metabolic disorders can give rise to changes in how the brain makes decisions.
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The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is an organization of nearly 30,000 basic scientists and clinicians who study the brain and the nervous system.