Monday, May 19, 2025, 12:30 – 2:15 pm, Talk Room 2
The Vision Sciences Society is honored to present J. Anthony Movshon with the 2025 Ken Nakayama Medal for Excellence in Vision Science.
The Ken Nakayama Medal is in honor of Professor Ken Nakayama’s contributions to the Vision Sciences Society, as well as his innovations and excellence in the domain of vision sciences.
The winner of the Ken Nakayama Medal receives this honor for high-impact work that has made a lasting contribution in vision science in the broadest sense. The nature of this work can be fundamental, clinical or applied.
J. Anthony Movshon
University Professor and Silver Professor; Professor of Neural Science and Psychology; Professor of Ophthalmology and of Neuroscience and Physiology, and Investigator, Neuroscience Institute (NYU School of Medicine)
Tony Movshon has been selected as this year’s recipient of the Ken Nakayama Medal for Excellence in Vision Science. This honor recognizes his singular synthesis of the three primary strands of modern vision research—psychophysics, physiology and computational theory—and tireless leadership of the vision science community. Tony is known for foundational research transforming our understanding of the mechanisms representing the form, texture, and motion of objects, how these mechanisms contribute to perceptual judgments and guidance of actions, and how visual experience influences development of these mechanisms. His quantitative analysis of the linearity of simple and complex receptive fields led to formal insights like normalization. His investigation of the nature of motion transparency and coherence led to a cascade model explaining visual appearances. His rigorous use of signal detection theory linked physiological measurements to psychophysical judgments and gaze control. His pioneering studies of visual system development under normal and deprived conditions supported clinical insights into amblyopia.
Tony is also recognized as an exceptionally impactful mentor and role model, who has trained dozens and influenced generations of scientists. Tony’s contributions to the vision science community have been amplified by his service on countless scientific editorial boards and grant review committees and by his role advising, among others, the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience, the Simons Foundation, the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, and the Max Planck Society. He established the Center for Neural Science at NYU, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory summer course Computational Neuroscience: Vision, and the Annual Review of Vision Science. He was elected to the Board of Directors of VSS in 2007 and served as President.
Tony earned a B.A. at Cambridge University in 1972 and continued there to earn a Ph.D. under the supervision of Colin Blakemore in 1975. Since 1975 he has been a faculty member at New York University. Tony’s research contributions have been recognized by the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience, the Rank Prize in Optoelectronics, and the Champalimaud Vision Award. He has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Association for Psychological Science and member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of London.