Nicole C. Rust, PhD
Author, professor, and scientist
AUTHOR: Nicole is the author of the book Elusive Cures: Why Neuroscience Hasn’t Solved Brain Disorders — and How We Can Change That. In it, she argues that treating a brain disorder is more like redirecting a hurricane than fixing a domino chain of cause and effect, and that only once we embrace the idea of the brain as a complex system will we have any hope of improving treatments and cures for brain and mental illness.
PROFESSOR: Dr. Rust is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. She received her B.S. in molecular biology from the University of Idaho, her Ph.D. in Neural Science from New York University, and she completed her postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She teaches undergraduate classes including Introduction to Neuroscience.
SCIENTIST: Nicole’s research is focused on understanding the brain’s remarkable ability to remember the things we’ve seen (“visual memory”) and what drives the mysterious feeling we call “mood”. As a complement to this foundational research, she also works to develop new therapies to treat memory and mood dysfunction. Nicole’s new work on mood is supported by a Simons Foundation Pivot Fellowship.
Nicole is also a contributing editor at The Transmitter, a leading brain research news magazine. In addition, she serves as an editor for BrainFacts.org, a source designed to share stories of scientific discovery from neuroscientists around the world. Nicole passionately advocates for more scientists to engage with the public.
Awards
Nicole’s work on memory has been recognized by the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences for “revolutionizing how we think about neural representation in inferotemporal cortex, providing significant new understanding of the relationship between visual perception and visual memory.” She is an elected member of the Memory Disorders Research Society and a recipient of a McKnight Scholar Award, as well as a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation, an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Charles Ludwig Distinguished Teaching Award.
