Troland Research Awards

Troland Research Awards

The Troland Research Awards were established to recognize experimental psychologists and vision scientists for empirical research. The awards were endowed to support investigators who address perceptual and neural mechanisms related to vision and sensation. The administration and prize structure link to institutions and figures prominent in American scientific life.

History

The endowment traces to individuals and institutions active in early 20th-century American science including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago, Stanford University, Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, Brown University, University of Michigan, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, California Institute of Technology, Rockefeller Institute, Carnegie Institution for Science, Bell Labs, Macy Conferences, American Psychological Association, American Philosophical Society, Royal Society, National Academy of Sciences, Smithsonian Institution, New York University, University of Minnesota, Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Mount Sinai Health System, Mayo Clinic, Salk Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, National Institutes of Health, Office of Naval Research, National Science Foundation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, United States Geological Survey, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Mental Health, National Eye Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Wellesley College, Smith College, Barnard College, Radcliffe College, Vassar College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College played intersecting roles in shaping early recipients and administrators. Key figures associated by influence include E. B. Titchener, William James, G. Stanley Hall, Sigmund Freud, John Dewey, Edward C. Tolman, B. F. Skinner, Jean Piaget, Noam Chomsky, Ulric Neisser, Roger Sperry, David Hubel, Torsten Wiesel, Hubert Dreyfus, Daniel Kahneman, Amos Tversky, Jerome Bruner, Herbert Spencer, Wilhelm Wundt, Hermann von Helmholtz, James J. Gibson, Rodolfo Llinás, Steven Pinker, Michael Gazzaniga, Oliver Sacks, Eric Kandel, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Stanley Prusiner, Antonio Damasio, Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Joseph E. LeDoux, Robert Sapolsky, Christof Koch.

Purpose and Eligibility

The award targets experimental work in perception, sensation, and vision by researchers who typically hold appointments at universities or research institutes such as University of Rochester, University of California, San Diego, University College London, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Toronto, McGill University, Karolinska Institute, Max Planck Society, Fraunhofer Society, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Riken, ETH Zurich, École Normale Supérieure, University of Melbourne, Australian National University, Seoul National University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, National University of Singapore, Indian Institute of Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, University of Zurich, University of Geneva, University of Bonn, Heidelberg University, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, University of Munich. Eligibility historically favored mid-career investigators with demonstrated empirical contributions, often associated with laboratories that include personnel from postdoctoral fellowships and training programs at Fulbright Program, Rhodes Scholarship, Marshall Scholarship, Guggenheim Fellowship, NIH K-awards, Wellcome Trust, EMBO, European Research Council. Nominees have been tied to collaborations with clinical centers like Johns Hopkins Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Cleveland Clinic, Children's Hospital Boston, Bellevue Hospital Center.

Selection Process and Committee

Selection has been conducted by committees convened under the aegis of the National Academy of Sciences drawing members from societies such as Optical Society of America, Vision Sciences Society, Society for Neuroscience, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, Psychonomic Society, European Conference on Visual Perception, International Congress of Psychology, Society for the Neural Control of Movement, International Neuropsychological Society, International Society for Psychophysics, Association for Psychological Science, Americal Academy of Arts and Sciences, Royal Society of Medicine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Society for Imaging Science and Technology, IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Society for Psychophysics and Perception. Committees have included elected members from institutions like Harvard Medical School, UCSF, Yale School of Medicine, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Stanford School of Medicine and have solicited external reviews from investigators linked to human electrophysiology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, electrophysiology, single-unit recording, psychophysics, computational modeling, optical coherence tomography, adaptive optics research centers. Administrative oversight historically referenced governance practices exemplified by NAS Council and funding norms aligned with Endowment management by universities and foundations such as Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Rockefeller Foundation.

Recipients and Notable Awardees

Recipients include investigators associated with landmark work by researchers like David Hubel, Torsten Wiesel, Semir Zeki, Nancy Kanwisher, Margaret Livingstone, Sperling, Stephen Kosslyn, Michael Posner, Anne Treisman, Terry Sejnowski, Terry J. Sejnowski, John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, Edvard Moser, Christof Koch, Hubel and Wiesel-era neuroscientists, and contemporary scientists at MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Caltech Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Columbia Neuroscience, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine. Awardees have produced work intersecting with literature from Nature Neuroscience, Journal of Neuroscience, Neuron, Science, Nature, PNAS, Current Biology, Vision Research, Journal of Vision, Perception & Psychophysics.

Impact and Contributions to Vision Science

The awards have spotlighted advances in cortical circuitry, retinotopic mapping, visual attention, color processing, motion perception, and visual development, influencing projects at centers like Salk Institute, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, University of Tübingen, University of Maryland Center for Mind and Brain, Center for Neural Science New York University, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Allen Institute for Brain Science, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Janelia Research Campus, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Laboratory of Molecular Biology and labs led by scientists recognized by prizes such as the Nobel Prize, Lasker Award, MacArthur Fellows Program, Brain Prize, Kavli Prize, Crafoord Prize. Recognition has often accelerated collaborations with translational groups at Schepens Eye Research Institute, Wilmer Eye Institute, Bascom Palmer Eye Institute, Wills Eye Hospital, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital, shaping interventions in amblyopia, retinal prosthetics, optogenetics, and computational vision algorithms used in industry partners like Google DeepMind, OpenAI, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, Facebook AI Research, NVIDIA Research. The award's profile has helped recipients secure further support from funders including NIH, NSF, European Research Council, Wellcome Trust, promoting cross-disciplinary work at the interface of neuroscience, ophthalmology, engineering, and cognitive science.

Category:American science and technology awards