Fernando Nottebohm

Dr Fernando Nottebohm is a preeminent neuroscientist and is the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Animal Behavior and Director of the Field Research Center for Ecology and Ethology at Rockefeller University.

The 2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science is awarded to Fernando Nottebohm for his discovery of neuronal replacement in the adult vertebrate brain, and the elaboration of the mechanism and choreography of this phenomenon; and also for showing that neuronal stem cells are the responsible agents, thereby generating a completely new approach to the quest for cures for brain injury and degenerative disease.

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He was born in Argentina and received his PhD in Zoology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966 while working with Peter Marler.

Academic positions

1967-71 Assistant Professor, Rockefeller University

1971-76 Associate Professor, Rockefeller University

1976-Present Professor, Rockefeller University

1981-Present Director, Rockefeller University Field Research Center for Ecology and Ethology, Millbrook, New York

Honors and awards

1982 Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

1982 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1982 Kenneth Craik Research Award of St. John’s College, Cambridge University, England, for outstanding scholarship in physiological psychology.

1984 Pattison Award for Distinguished Research in the Neurosciences.

1986 Nelson Medical Lectureship, awarded by the School of Medicine of the University of California, Davis

1986 Elliott Coue’s Award, American Ornithologists’ Union.

1987 Painton Award, Cooper Ornithological Society.

1988 Member of the National Academy of Sciences. USA

1990 MERIT Award, National Institutes of Mental Health.

1991 Member of the American Philosophical Society.

1992 Charles A. Dana Award (jointly with Masakazu Konishi) for pioneering achievement in The Health Sciences.

1995 King Solomon Lecturer at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

1996 Named to the Dorothea L. Leonhardt Distinguished Professorship, Rockefeller University

1999 Fondation Ipsen Neuronal Plasticity Prize (jointly with Peter Marler and Masakazu Konishi).

2003 Ernst Florey Plenary Lecture. 29th Gottingen Neurobiology Conference & 15th Meeting of German Neuroscience Society.

2004 Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in the Basic Medical Sciences (shared with Masakazu Konishi and Peter Marler).

2004 Karl Spencer Lashley Award (shared with Masakazu Konishi). American Philosophical Society

2006 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Sciences. The Franklin Institute.

2006 Sven Berggren Lecture and Prize. Royal Physiographic Society in Lund.