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To honour the memory of Jon Driver, an annual Prize is awarded to outstanding young neuroscientists from UCL.
Key information
Jon Driver
Jon Driver (4 July 1962 – 28 November 2011) was a UCL psychologist and neuroscientist. He was a leading figure in the study of perception, selective attention and multisensory integration in the normal and damaged human brain. Reflecting Jon Driver’s commitment to mentorship, and his seminal contribution to promoting neuroscience at UCL, the prize is awarded competitively every year to recognise the high-quality research of students completing their PhD in the field of neuroscience at UCL.
Eligibility
PhD students in neuroscience at UCL who are engaged in cognitive, system and circuit based neuroscience research (registered at the time of the application deadline).
Deadline
Friday 25th April 2025, 13:00
Requirements
- 2 page CV with publication list
- Motivation statement (500 words)
- 1-page abstract describing work to be considered (SFN abstract format)
- Supporting statement from supervisor/sponsor
- 50-word biography
- Proposed title for talk at Neuroscience Symposium if selected
- High-resolution photograph of yourself
Award
Cash £750 awarded to the winner(s). The winner(s) will be asked to give a short presentation of the work that the award was given for at the annual UCL Neuroscience Symposium on Wednesday 18th June 2025.
Committee
- Ray Dolan (Chair, 2023)
- Sven Bestmann
- Francesca Cacucci
- Stephen Fleming
- Gabriella Vigliocco
Apply
For applications and information, please email: jondriverprize@ucl.ac.uk
FAQs
Follow the Jon Driver Prize Twitter account to be the first to hear when submissions open, deadlines and further information.
Previous winners
- 2024 Winners
Maxime Beau, PhD Student, Neural Computation Lab (Michael Häusser), Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research, UCL
A deep-learning strategy to identify cell types across species from high-density extracellular recordings and monosynaptic information transmission across the cerebellar output pathway
Eleanor Spens, PhD Student, Computational Neuroscience, UCL
Learning to imagine: Generative models of memory construction and consolidation
- 2023 Winner
Sara de Felice, Former PhD student, UCL Department of Psychology and Language Sciences, now Research Associate at the University of Cambridge
The Role of Social Interaction in Learning: Behavioural and Neural Mechanisms
- 2022 Winners
Anna-Leigh Brown, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
TDP-43 cryptic splicing uncovers the mechanism behind an intronic ALS/FTD risk variant in synaptic gene UNC13ADustin Herrmann, Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research
Functional organization and dendritic integration of feedback in visual cortex- 2021 Winners
Alex Fratzl, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre
Flexible inhibitory control of visually-evoked defensive behaviourMatthew Nour, Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research
Impaired neural replay for inferred relationships in schizophrenia, and its relationship to default mode network functionDora Steel, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health
Whole-genome sequencing for rare childhood movement disordersAngeliki Zarkali, UCL Dementia Research Centre
Finding the network balance: the neural correlates of visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease
- 2020 Winners
Pablo Izquierdo UCL Department of Neuroscience, Physiology and Pharmacology
Synapse development is regulated by microglial THIK-1 K+ channelYunzhe Liu Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research
Neural replay in abstraction and inferenceMax Rollwage Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research
Cognitive and neural mechanism underlying confirmation bias- 2019 Winner
Sean Cavanagh, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
The role of neuronal timescales in cognition- 2018 Winners
Andrea Banino, CoMPLEX, UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, and DeepMind
Neuroscience and AI: modelling the brain using deep neural networks
Dr Ruben Duque do Vale, Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour
Spatial navigation during escape behaviours in mice- 2017 Winners
Christin Kosse, Denis Burdakov Lab, The Francis Crick Institute
Amy McTague, Manju Kurian Lab, Great Ormond Street Hospital
Federico Rossi, Matteo Carandini Lab, UCL Institute of Opthalmology
About Jon Driver
Jon Driver (1962 - 2011) was a highly influential cognitive neuroscientist whose work had a major impact world-wide, and who played a leading role in the neuroscience community at UCL.
He was Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL and was Director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN) from 2004 to 2009.
His work was widely recognized - by numerous prizes; by his election to the fellowship of the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences; and by the award of a Royal Society Research Professorship. He trained many of the top people in the field, who are now in leading positions around the world.
Jon was a dynamic and highly respected figure at UCL: he played a key role in the team that attracted the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre to UCL, and in the establishment of the UCL Neuroscience Domain.
For more information about Jon Driver and his work, please see his Wikipedia page. You an also consult the collection of articles published by Nature Neuroscience or view the tribute page.