SfN Election Results: Meet Your New Leaders
The Society for Neuroscience extends congratulations to its newly elected officers and councilors. The incoming leaders will begin their terms at Neuroscience 2022 in San Diego.
Incoming President-Elect: Marina Picciotto
Marina Picciotto, PhD, is the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor in Psychiatry, Deputy Chair for Basic Science Research, and Director of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry at Yale University. She is also professor in the departments of Neuroscience, Pharmacology, and the Child Study Center. She received her PhD from The Rockefeller University and did her postdoctoral work at the Institut Pasteur. Dr. Picciotto’s research seeks to understand the role of acetylcholine and its receptors in cellular processes and circuits relevant to complex behaviors and psychiatric illness.
Dr. Picciotto has been an SfN member for nearly 30 years and has served as Treasurer and a Councilor in addition to serving on the Audit Committee, the Investment Committee, the Finance Committee, the Chair of the Program Committee, and the Scientific Vision Task Force. Dr. Picciotto has been the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroscience since 2015 and will complete her term at the end of 2022. Dr. Picciotto is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of Science.
Regarding her upcoming term as President, Dr. Picciotto said, “It is exciting and a little sobering to be coming into this role as we are still processing changes in how we come together to share data and what a career in neuroscience looks like today. We have a lot of issues to tackle as a field – both for trainees and established researchers. I invite anyone who has suggestions on how we can make SfN welcoming and of service to the diverse needs of our members to contact me with their ideas.”
Incoming Treasurer-Elect: Quentin Pittman
Quentin Pittman, PhD, is Professor and Deputy Head of the Department of Physiology & Pharmacology at University of Calgary and the Director of Education and Training at Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute at the University of Calgary. Dr. Pittman received his PhD in from the University of Calgary and carried out postdoctoral work at McGill University and the Salk Institute. His research explores hypothalamic control of autonomic and neuroendocrine function, long-term effects of early life inflammation on the brain, and the mechanisms underlying behavioral co-morbidity in peripheral chronic inflammatory disease and neurological conditions.
Dr. Pittman has been a member of SfN since 1974 and has served on the Audit Committee, the Finance Committee, and the Strategic Acquisition/Investment Working Group. He has also held leadership positions with the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the International Brain Research Organization, the International Union of Physiological Sciences, the Canadian Association for Neuroscience, and the International Federation of Neuroendocrinology as well as serving as President of the Canadian Physiological Society. Dr. Pittman has contributed as an associate editor of many publications, including eNeuro, Brain Behavior & Immunity, J. Physiol, J. Neuroendocrinol, and Frontiers in Neuroendocrine Science.
Incoming Councilor: Guoping Feng
Guoping Feng, PhD is the Poitras Professor of Neuroscience and Associate Director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Director of Model Systems and Neurobiology at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He received a PhD from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Feng’s research explores molecular mechanisms regulating synapse development and function, neural circuitry mechanisms of behavior with a focus on cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical circuits, and the neurobiological mechanisms of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Feng has been an SfN member for more than 30 years and held positions on the Committee on Committees, Nominating Committee, Nemko Prize Selection Committee, and Julius Axelrod Prize Selection Committee. He is a Scientific Council member of Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and part of the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Frontier Center of Brain and Brain-machine Integration at Zhejiang University, the Mending Minds Foundation, the 1907 Research Foundation, the Carney Institute for Brain Science at Brown University, and the Autism Science Foundation.
Incoming Councilor: Sarah Woolley
Sarah Woolley, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and Zuckerman Institute at Columbia University, Principal Investigator at the Zuckerman Institute, and elected Member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science at Columbia University. She received her PhD in Neurobiology and Behavior from the School of Medicine at the V. M. Bloedel Hearing Research Center University of Washington. Dr. Woolley’s research encompasses systems neuroscience, auditory neuroscience, neuroethology, sensorimotor integration, social behavior, and computation and modelling.
Dr. Woolley has been an SfN member for more than 20 years and has held volunteer positions on the Donald B. Lindsley Prize Selection Committee, the Committee on Animals in Research, the Trainee Professional Development Awards Selection Committee, and the Nemko Prize Selection Committee while organizing many satellite events for the annual meeting. She has served on the Executive Council, Congress Program Committee, and the Developing Neuroethology Awards Committee for the International Society for Neuroethology, the Awards Committee for the Association for Research in Otolaryngology, and the Knowles Prize in Hearing Research. She has been a standing member of the National Institutes of Health Sensory Motor Neuroscience study section and the National Science Foundation Behavioral Systems review panel. Dr. Woolley has held editorial positions with McGraw Hill Publishing, Developmental Neurobiology, and Oxford University Press, and served as an evaluator for the Gordon Research Conferences and Sineaur Press.
