Prominent Alumni in Neuroscience
Arthur McLean ’21. Portland's first neurosurgeon. Brilliant, magnetic, and mercurial, he authored more than two dozen articles on subjects from paraphysical cysts to intractable pain until a fatal car accident at the age of 44 cut short his career.
Richard F Thompson ’52. The first neuroscientist to identify and map the neural circuits responsible for Pavlovian learning. Authored 450 research papers. Won the Gold Medal Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Psychological Foundation and many other awards.
Jeff Noebels ’72. Leading authority on developmental neurogenetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Discovered "silent seizures" in Alzheimer's Diease. Expert on epilepsy and inherited neurological disorders. Author of more than 170 papers.
Paul Fuchs ’74. Authority on neuronal signaling in the inner ear at Johns Hopkins. Manipulated a protein on sensory hair cells in mouse ears and discovered that the mutant mice were better able to withstand loud noises.
Daniel Bullock ’74. Expert on neural models, social cognition, and robotic applications of neuroscience and biomechanics. Author of 119 papers on subjects ranging from neural networks, proprioception, music perception, and handwriting. Professor at Boston University.
Paul Taghert ’75. Authority on circadian neural circuits. Author of 86 papers. Professor at Washington University in St Louis.
Anne Calof ’78. Won the RARE Champion of Hope in Science Award for identifying the causative gene of the devastating disorder known as Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. Neurobiologist at UC Irvine.
William Frost ’78. Prominent researcher in how neural networks process information, store memory, and generate behavior. Chair of Cell Biology and Anatomy at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.
Roberto Malinow ’79. Leader in understanding synaptic function and how the brain forms and stores memories. Holds the Shiley Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UC San Diego.
Paul Slesinger '84. Currently the Director at the Center for Neurotechnology and Behavior, and the Lillian and Henry M. Stratton Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. He is an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and McKnight Scholar, working on discovering new drugs to treat drug and alcohol addiction. His Reed senior thesis was on electroreception in electric fish.
Gina Turrigiano ’84. Has won numerous awards for her research including a Sloan Foundation fellowship, a MacArthur foundation "genius" award, McKnight Foundation Technological Innovation and Neurobiology of Disease awards, an NIH director’s pioneer award, and the HFSP Nakasone Award for her pioneering work on homeostatic plasticity in the nervous system. Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her scientific interests include mechanisms of synaptic and intrinsic plasticity and the experience-dependent rewiring of neocortical microcircuitry. Professor at Brandeis University.
Steve Luck ’86. Expert in the basic mechanisms of attention and working memory and the use of event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Director of the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis.
Larry Sherman ’86. Investigates ways to help the brain repair myelin sheaths in multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative disorders at Oregon Health and Sciences University. Also an expert on the neurological dimensions of music.
Petr Janata ’90. Cognitive neuroscientist studying the psychology of music. Fulbright Scholar, Guggenheim Fellow, and professor at the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis, where he uses music and an array of behavioral, computational, and neuroimaging tools as a means of understanding how the brain organizes complex human behaviors.
Adam Douglass ’98. Authority on neuronal function and neuromodulation and single-cell activity, won a 2014 Sloan Research Fellowship. University of Utah.
Courtney Stevens ’01. Expert on healthy brain development in children. Directs the Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Willamette University,
Michael Hoppa ’04. Investigates neurotransmission and novel forms of neural plasticity at Dartmouth University.
Wick Perry ’13. Creator of Crescent Loom, a computer game designed to teach players the fundamentals of neurocircuitry by building primitive creatures that swim, forage, and fight.