Eve Marder ’69, Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield University Professor in Neuroscience and Biology, was recently awarded the 2023 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize from The Rockefeller University. Marder is one of two recipients of this prestigious prize, along with Lily Jan. Jan is the Jack and DeLoris Lange Professor of Physiology and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco. 

According to the Rockefeller University’s website, “Dr Greengard donated his entire monetary share of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Rockefeller.” The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize was established to honor the accomplishments of women scientists. The prize includes a $100,000 honorarium. 

Eve Marder, before coming to Brandeis as a professor, started her journey at Brandeis as an undergraduate, class of ’69. She then went on to pursue her Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego, and did her postdoctoral research at the University of Oregon and the Ecole Normale Superiéure, Paris, France. 

Marder has won countless awards throughout her time such as the Miriam Salpeter Award for Women in Neuroscience, the W.F. Gerard Prize from the Society of Neuroscience, the Karl Spencer Lashley Prize from the American Philosophical Society, the Gruber Award in Neuroscience and many others. 

According to her biography, Marder studies the dynamic of small neuronal networks. Her work was very important in demonstrating that neuronal circuits are not “hard-wired” but can be reconfigured by neuromodulatory neurons and substances to produce a variety of outputs. 

Marder also has formed the Marder Lab throughout her time at Brandeis. According to their website, The Marder Lab studies how circuit function arises from the intrinsic properties of individual neurons and their synaptic connections. They exploit the advantages of the central pattern circuits in the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system. 

Finally, when asked about how she feels to have won such a prestigious award for her research, Marder stated, “Sharing this award with Lily Jan is quite special for me, as I have known and admired Lily since 1979, and she is an astonishing scientist.  Although we are quite different, we share many of the same attitudes and philosophies about doing science, so this Award was particularly special because I shared it with Lily Jan.”