Another day, another major award for Brenda Milner.
The Dorothy J. Killam Professor at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) and McGill has been awarded the Goldman-Rakic Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Cognitive Neuroscience by the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD). NARSAD is the world’s leading charity dedicated to funding research on mental illness.
Milner’s brilliance as a researcher and her relentless inquisitiveness has built one of the great scientific biographies of our time. Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel, M.D., has credited her with merging neurobiology and psychology to form the new field of cognitive neuroscience – the field that brings together brain and behavior and helps explain key aspects of mental illness.
Jack Barchas, M.D., Chair of Psychiatry at the Weill Cornell Medical College and chair of the Goldman-Rakic prize committee, summed up Milner’s contribution in glowing terms. “Her impact has been overwhelming. Her work, opening so many new directions, has made Brenda Milner one of the most important neuroscientists that has ever lived and an inspiration for all of us,” he said. “With rare curiosity, insight, patience, and a brilliant integrative mind, she led extraordinary pioneering studies that truly defined cognitive neuroscience early on. She demonstrated with clarity the types of advances that could be made before others had even grasped the possibilities.”