Anne Churchland facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Anne Churchland
|
|
|---|---|
Churchland speaks to the Wellcome Trust in 2024
|
|
| Nationality | Canadian, American |
| Education | B.A., Wellesley College; PhD, UCSF |
| Known for | Neural circuits underlying perceptual decision making and multisensory integration |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Neuroscience |
| Institutions | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Thesis | Representations of eye and image velocity in motion sensitive cortex (2003) |
| Doctoral advisor | Stephen Lisberger |
| Other academic advisors | Michael Shadlen |
Anne K. Churchland is a scientist who studies the brain, called a neuroscientist. She works at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her lab explores how a part of the brain, the posterior parietal cortex, helps us make choices and combine information from our different senses.
One of her cool discoveries is that single brain cells (neurons) in rodents can do many jobs at once. She also found that rodents are very good at combining information from different senses, just like humans. For example, they can use both sight and sound together.
Dr. Churchland believes that studying rodents can help us understand how our brains work. She has helped create new ways to study animal behavior, which were once only used with monkeys.
She is also a founder of the International Brain Laboratory. This group helps scientists work together to understand the brain. She also advises the Allen Institute for Brain Science.
Dr. Churchland started a website called Anneslist. It helps make sure that women scientists are included in important science meetings.
Contents
About Anne Churchland
Her Family
Anne Churchland's parents, Patricia Churchland and Paul Churchland, are both philosophers. Philosophers are people who study big ideas about knowledge and life. Her brother, Mark Churchland, is also a neuroscientist. He teaches at Columbia University.
Her Education and Training
Anne Churchland went to Wellesley College for her first degree. She studied how children's minds grow and learn. She earned degrees in math and psychology.
In 2003, she earned her PhD in neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco. Her research looked at how the brain processes what we see, especially movement.
After her PhD, from 2004 to 2010, Dr. Churchland did more advanced training. This is called a postdoctoral fellowship. She worked at the University of Washington. There, she studied how the brain makes decisions based on what it senses.
Her Research Work
From 2010 to May 2020, Dr. Churchland led her own research team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. This means she was in charge of her own science projects.
In May 2020, she moved to the University of California, Los Angeles. She is now a professor there. She holds a special position called the Arnold B. Scheibel, M.D. Chair for Brain Research.
Understanding Fidgeting
Anne Churchland has studied why people fidget, or make small movements. She explored how these movements might be connected to thinking. One idea is that fidgeting could help us start and keep thinking. This research might help explain why people with ADHD sometimes need to move more to focus.
How We Make Decisions
Dr. Churchland continues to study how our brains make decisions. She focuses on how we combine information from different senses. Her lab watches and changes brain cells in rodents. They observe how the rodents make choices based on what they see or hear. They also use math to understand how groups of brain cells work together.
Supporting Women in Science
Dr. Churchland is well-known for helping women in neuroscience. She created anneslist, which is a list of women scientists in brain research. She started it to help find women who could speak at science meetings.
In 2017, the Society for Neuroscience recognized her efforts. She received The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award. This award honors people who promote women in neuroscience, even if it's not directly through research.
Awards and Honors
- McKnight Scholar Award (2012)
- Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences by The Pew Charitable Trusts (2014)
- Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship in the Neurosciences from the Simons Foundation and the Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund (2014)
- The Louise Hanson Marshall Special Recognition Award from the Society of Neuroscience (2017)
