Sunday, May 21, 2023, 1:00 – 2:00 pm, Jasmine/Palm
Moderator: Geoffrey Boynton, University of Washington
Discussants: Todd Horowitz, National Cancer Institute; Tatiana Pasternak, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH); Betty Tuller, National Science Foundation; and Cheri Wiggs, National Eye Institute (NIH)
You have a great research idea, but you need money to make it happen. You need to write a grant. This workshop will address various funding mechanisms for vision research. Our panelists will discuss their organization’s interests and priorities, and give insight into the inner workings of their extramural research programs. There will be time for your questions.
Todd Horowitz
National Eye Institute (NIH)
Todd Horowitz, is a Program Director in the Behavioral Research Program’s (BRP) Basic Biobehavioral and Psychological Sciences Branch (BBPSB), located in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Dr. Horowitz earned his doctorate in Cognitive Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1995. Prior to joining NCI, he was Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School and Associate Director of the Visual Attention Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has published more than 70 peer-reviewed research papers in vision science and cognitive psychology. His research interests include attention, perception, medical image interpretation, cancer-related cognitive impairments, sleep, and circadian rhythms.
Tatiana Pasternak
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH)
Tatiana Pasternak, is a Scientific Review Officer at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS). Since she joined NINDS in 2020, she has been focused on overseeing the review of applications submitted to the BRAIN Initiative, the funding mechanism supported by 10 NIH institutes, including the National Eye Institute. Prior to joining NINDS, she was a tenured Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester with an active research program focused on cortical circuits underlying visual perception and working memory in the primate brain. Throughout her academic career, she has participated in the NIH and NSF peer review, serving as a permanent member on several NIH study sections as well as on many other review panels. As one of the founding members of the Vision Science Society, she has served for several years on its Board of Directors and for two years as its President.
Betty Tuller
National Science Foundation
Betty Tuller, serves as a Director of the Perception, Action and Cognition Program at the National Science Foundation, where she also serves on the management team for programs in Computational Cognition, the Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier, the NSF AI Institutes, Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science, and Collaborative Research in Cognitive Neuroscience. Dr. Tuller earned her doctorate from the University of Connecticut in 1980, then completed post-doctoral work at Cornell University Medical Center and NYU Medical Center. Prior to joining NSF, she was Professor of Complex Systems and Brain Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Florida Atlantic University.
Cheri Wiggs
National Eye Institute (NIH)
Cheri Wiggs, Ph.D., serves as a Program Director at the National Eye Institute (of the National Institutes of Health). She oversees extramural funding through three programs — Perception & Psychophysics, Myopia & Refractive Errors, and Low Vision & Blindness Rehabilitation. She received her PhD from Georgetown University in 1991 and came to the NIH as a researcher in the Laboratory of Brain and Cognition. She made her jump to the administrative side of science in 1998 as a Scientific Review Officer. She currently represents the NEI on several trans-NIH coordinating committees (including BRAIN, Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Medical Rehabilitation Research) and was appointed to the NEI Director’s Audacious Goals Initiative Working Group.
Geoffrey Boynton
University of Washington
Geoffrey Boynton, is a VSS Board Member and studies visual attention, reading and prosthetic vision. After studying mathematics at U.C. San Diego and U.C. Santa Barbara, Dr. Boynton received a PhD in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences at U.C. Santa Barbara in 1994. After a decade at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA, he joined the faculty at the University of Washington. In 2019 led an effort to develop a research MRI facility at the new Center for Human Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology which he now directs. He also teaches courses on visual perception and statistics.