Casagrande honored at the 2018 Society for Neuroscience Conference

At a ceremony yesterday at meetings of the Society for Neuroscience our friend and colleague Vivien Casagrande was announced as the 2018 winner of the Patricia Goldman-Rakic Hall of Honor Award. Named in honor of the late Paticia Goldman-Rakic, this award is given posthumously for recognition “of a neuroscientist who pursued career excellence and exhibited dedication to the advancement of women in neuroscience.” To quote from the SfN website:
The late Vivien Casagrande, PhD, was an internationally known neuroscientist with a remarkable record of groundbreaking research on sensory systems and development. She joined the Vanderbilt University faculty in 1975, where she was a professor of biology and psychology. Her research, which mapped the visual brain circuitry in a variety of species, has advanced the understanding of the development and evolution of the mammalian visual system.

Casagrande published 130 research papers in neuroscience and authored or coauthored an additional 30 chapters and reviews. She received numerous awards for her research, including the American Association of Anatomists’ C.J. Herrick Award for contributions to comparative neuroscience, the Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Award for Research, and election as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Casagrande was a past president of the Cajal Club, the nation’s oldest neuroscience society, and served twice as president of the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. Her teaching and mentoring contributions were recognized by her receipt of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award in 2015.

Casagrande passed away in 2017 from cancer. Vanderbilt has honored her memory by establishing an endowed lecture series and an endowed, annual travel award for an outstanding graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. In addition, funds from Casagrande’s estate have been used to endow a scholarship in neuroscience at Vanderbilt.

We are happy that her husband, James McKenna (Professor Emeritus, Vanderbilt) will have the crystal bowl marking this honor.