Prof. Eve Marder '69 (BIOL), the Victor and Gwendolyn Beinfield Professor of Neuroscience and the head of the Division of Science, has been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, according to an Oct. 21 BrandeisNOW press release.

Marder was elected to the IOM on Oct. 1 as part of a cohort of 70 new members and 10 new foreign associates. She is the third Brandeis faculty to be elected to the Institute.

Prof. Stuart Altman (Heller) was elected in 1996, and Prof. Emeritus Gregory Petsko (BCHM) was elected in 2001. Election to the institute is conducted by current members.

Marder conducts research on the modulation of neural networks, using the nervous system of crustaceans such as lobsters and crabs as models.

Her research has been recognized with her past elections to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she served as the president of the Society for Neuroscience in 2008. Earlier this year, Marder won the 2013 Gruber Neuroscience Prize and was appointed to the scientific advisory board of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, a project launched by the Obama administration to enhance neuroscience research.

In an email to the Justice, Marder commented on her election to the IOM. "It is a great honor," she wrote, "and I am appreciative of the respect of my peers that it signals."

Marder also wrote that she does not expect her election to the IOM to impact her work on the advisory committee of the BRAIN Initiative.

The IOM defines itself on its website as "an independent, nonprofit organization that works outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to decision makers and the public."

The website further explains that "many of the studies that the IOM undertakes begin as specific mandates from Congress; still other are requested by federal agencies and independent organizations."

-Phil Gallagher