Rebecca Burwell
Brown University Professor and Principal Investigator of the Burwell Laboratory, Dr. Rebecca Burwell received her doctorate in Experimental and Biological Psychology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1992. Her postdoctoral training in neuroanatomy and electrophysiology was at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at The State University of New York at Stony Brook. She has been at Brown since 1996 and is a Professor in the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences with a secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience. Dr. Burwell trains graduate students in the Psychology Graduate Program and in the Neuroscience Graduate Program.
Professor Burwell has a longstanding interest in undergraduate education, especially in increasing diversity in neuroscience. African Americans and Latinos are drastically underrepresented in neuroscience, and women still lag behind their male colleagues in achieving rank in the neurosciences. For several years, Professor Burwell directed an outreach program to students at Tougaloo College, an historically black college in Jackson, MS. Five Tougaloo undergraduate students completed research rotations in the Burwell lab. The work of two of those students resulted in a publication (Furtak, Cho et al. 2009). Professor Burwell also has an affiliation with Dillard University, an historically black university in New Orleans, LA. Application for summer research rotations are especially encouraged from Tougaloo College, Dillard University, and Xavier University.
Professor Burwell's teaching interests are in the theory, history, literature, and techniques of behavioral neuroscience, particularly the areas if memory and attention.
Courses
CLPS1150 Memory and the Brain
CLPS1400 Neural Basis of Cognition
Awards
National Merit Scholarship, 1971-1974
University Scholar, Southern Methodist University, 1973-1974
B.A. Magna Cum Laude, 1974
James R. Kenan Graduate Fellowship, UNC, 08/87-05/88
National Science Foundation (NSF) Predoctoral Fellowship, 06/88-05/91
American Psychological Association Division 20 Student Research Award, 1991
National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Fellowship, 06/91-08/92
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Postdoctoral Fellowship, 12/92-11/95
McDonnell-Pew Fellowship to attend the Cold Spring Harbor Biology of Memory Course, Summer 1993
NIMH BSTART Award: The Contribution of the Perirhinal Cortex to Configural Learning, 1997-98
NSF Career Development Award: Cognitive Functions of the Postrhinal Cortex, 1999-2003
Karen T. Romer Prize for Undergraduate Advising and Mentoring, 2011
Elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Summer 2013
Editor-in-Chief, APA Journal, Behavioral Neuroscience, 2014-2020
Current and Pending Funding
National Science Foundation (NSF) Award: Cognitive Functions of the Postrhinal Cortex (07/2012-06/2016). PI: Burwell
Brown Institute for Brain Science, Disorders of cerebral spinal fluid, 2015-2020. Co-PI.
NIH 1R01MH108729-01. Circuit Analysis of Corticohippocampal Interactions in Memory. (01/15/2016-11/30/2020, PI: Burwell)
Recent Completed Funding
NSF EFRI Award (EFRI 0937848) Dynamic Sensing and Actuating of Sensory and Motor
Neural Microcircuits, 2009-2013, PI: Nurmikko, Co-PI: Burwell.
DARPA: Brain Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery: Multi-scale and
Multi-modal Models Enabled by Next Generation Neurotechnology, 09/2010-08/2014,
Stanford PI: Krishna Shenoy, Brown PI: Nurmikko, Co-PI: Connors, Subcontract: Burwell.
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