Candidates for President-electSusan J. Sara and Giuseppe Vallar Autobiographical sketchesGiuseppe
Vallar,
born
1951, MD, neurologist, is Professor of Physiological Psychology in the
University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy. In the last 20 years GV has
been working in Milano (University of Milano, Department of Neurology),
Cambridge, UK (MRC Applied Psychology Unit), and Roma (University of
Roma “La Sapienza”, Department of Psychology; IRCCS Clinica S.
Lucia). His main research interests concern “human neuropsychology”
and “cognitive neuro-science”. A first research area is the
functional and neural organisation of memory systems in humans, with a
particular interest in verbal or phonological short-term memory, and its
role in language acquisition. A second main area concerns spatial
cognition, explored through the pathological model of the syndrome of
spatial unilateral neglect. Specifically investigated aspects of neglect
include its neural bases in humans, the modulatory role of sensory
inputs on a number of components of the syndrome, its motor and
somatosensory neurological manifestations. A third area of interest is
about the methodological and theoretical foundations of human
neuropsychology. GV has been a member of the Councils or Committees of a
number of Scientific Societies
(International Association for the
Study of Attention and Performance,
European Brain and Behaviour
Society, Forum of European
Neuroscience, Società Italiana di Neuroscienze), and
is the President of the Società
Italiana di Neuropsicologia.
He
has recently organised an Euroconference on the “Cognitive and Neural
bases of spatial neglect” (Como, Italy, September 2000, in cooperation
with H-O. Karnath and AD Milner). Susan
J. Sara
is a
Director of Research of the CNRS in France, head of the Laboratory of
Neuromodulation and Cognitive Process at the Institute of Neurosciences,
University P. & M. Curie. After obtaining a degree in Physio-logical
Psychology from Sarah Lawrence College (New York), SJS studied
Phenomen-ological Psychology and Neurosciences at the University of
Louvain (Belgium), obtaining a Ph.D. in 1976. This was followed by
post-doctoral work at
Oxford
University and New York University Medical School (Dept of Neurology).
Recruited by the CNRS in 1981, her research addresses the question of
how attention, motivation and emotion are mediated in
the nervous system to influence short and long term memory processes.
Focus is on
neuromodulatory systems, especially noradrenaline, using a
multidisciplinary approach—single unit recording in behaving rats,
pharmacology and immunocytochemistry, always in close conjunction with
behavioural analysis. The temporal dynamics of long term memory
consolidation, retrieval and reconsolidation has been an important part
of this work over the years. In addition to French funding, ESF and NSF
(USA) have provided support for several international coll-aborations.
Author of over 80 papers and reviews, SJS was awarded the Montyon Prize
in 1998 from the French Academy of Sciences. Editor-in-chief of Neural
Plasticity and
consultant to the European commission for the 5th PCRDT, she
is a member of the scientific advisory board of the ESF-Euresco
conference series on Neurobiology of Learning and Memory and was chair
of the 1998 Conference of that series. She is a member of the Program
committee for the FENS2002 meeting. SJS served as
Secretary of EBBS from 1996-2001. Susan J. Sara (Newsletter 2001) |
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