Doris Tsao, professor of neuroscience and member of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at UC Berkeley, has been awarded the 2024 António Champalimaud Vision Award along with Margaret Livingstone (Harvard Medical School), Nancy Kanwisher (MIT), and Winrich Freiwald (Rockefeller University) for their groundbreaking discoveries about how the brain recognizes faces. The award was given by the Champalimaud Foundation, based in Portugal, and is the largest award given in the fields of vision and ophthalmology. The four laureates will share a prize of 1 million Euro.
The scientists were honored for their collective work identifying and characterizing the areas of the brain involved in facial recognition, which has significantly advanced the field of visual neuroscience. Tsao was specifically recognized for her work uncovering how facial information is encoded in the brain. This research could lead to better understanding and treatment of visual disorders such as the inability to recognize faces.
Read more from the Champalimaud Foundation: António Champalimaud Vision Award 2024 honours researchers who demonstrated how the brain recognises faces
