Two UC Davis neuroscientists receive honors from the Society for Neuroscience
Ron Mangun, Distinguished Professor of psychology and neurology and co-director of the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis, has just been awarded the 2024 Award for Education in Neuroscience by the Society for Neuroscience. This prize recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to undergraduate- and graduate-level neuroscience education and training.
“This recognition is truly well-deserved, and we are honored to have Ron Mangun as a faculty member,” said Estella Atekwana, dean of the College of Letters and Science. “His dedication to education and the impact he has had on the field are an inspiration to us all.”
For Mangun, the award is a special honor. He first joined the Society for Neuroscience, the largest professional group in the field, as a new doctoral student in 1981. His experience at that meeting shaped his career, leading him to embrace the emerging subdiscipline of cognitive neuroscience and becoming one of its leaders. Since then, Mangun’s contributions to education have benefited generations of researchers in his field.
“The Society for Neuroscience has had a fundamentally important impact on my career from the first meeting I attended,” said Mangun. “I was stunned to receive this award. It is so meaningful to me because it goes back to my career roots.”
Building the field of cognitive neuroscience from the ground up
This award from the Society for Neuroscience is not an award for classroom teaching, though Mangun has mentored and trained dozens of undergraduate, doctoral, medical and postdoctoral trainees in both psychology and neuroscience. Instead, the award reflects the broader impacts of his work that has enabled and expanded training and education in neuroscience worldwide.
“Dr. Mangun has shown a sincere dedication to neuroscience education at all levels throughout his career,” the award committee noted.
Mangun joined UC Davis in 1992 as a founding faculty member of the Center for Neuroscience and became a member of the Neuroscience Graduate Group shortly thereafter. He has developed cognitive neuroscience courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Mangun has also served as director of cognitive neuroscience doctoral programs at Dartmouth College and Duke University.
Mangun coauthored the first cognitive neuroscience textbook, Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind, which has sold over 150,000 copies across five editions and continues to be the most widely adopted textbook in cognitive neuroscience today.
For a decade, Mangun directed the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience that has trained hundreds of doctoral and postdoctoral scholars from around the globe with support from the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Kavli Foundation.
Training future cognitive neuroscientists through centers and societies
Mangun also founded two major university research centers that have advanced the field of neuroscience and trained generations of scholars. He was the founding director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at Duke University, and later the founding director of the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, which he currently co-leads with Amanda Guyer, a professor of human ecology.
With colleagues nationwide he chaired the founding committee of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, which has hosted 30 annual meetings since its establishment, providing many thousands of trainees with opportunities to present their work and develop their careers.
Mangun is an outspoken advocate for advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), doing so across his many activities, including as a founding member of the DEI committees of the Neuroscience Graduate Program and the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis.
Mangun has also received many awards for his research and leadership, including election as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and being named a 2024 Fulbright US Distinguished Scholar.
Mangun continues to teach cognitive neuroscience at UC Davis. He is currently a graduate advisor and continues to serve on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Mentoring committee for the Neuroscience Graduate Group. He said that at a major research university like UC Davis, strength in research translates directly to value in education, particularly undergraduate education.
This year, the Society for Neuroscience will also honor Theanne Griffith, an assistant professor in the department of physiology and membrane biology in the UC Davis School of Medicine, with its Science Educator Award. Griffith is an affiliate of the Center for Mind and Brain. Griffith will receive this award for her work conducting outreach, policy and education as an award-winning author of children's books that feature Black and brown children who love science, providing critical representation for young children from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in science.
“Education is part of our mission as university faculty members,” said Mangun. “Our students at UC Davis have leading scholars in their fields in the classroom, and that’s a tremendous advantage.”
Mangun and Griffith will receive their awards in Chicago on October 8, 2024, at the Society’s annual meeting.
A version of this article was published on the Letters and Science Magazine website.