Mala Murthy is an American neuroscientist who serves as the director of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, and she is the Karol and Marnie Marcin ’96 Professor of Neuroscience at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. Her work centers around how the brain extracts important information from the sensory world and utilises that information to modulate behavior in a social context. She is most known for her work in acoustic communication and song production in courting

Drosophila ''Drosophila'' (), from Ancient Greek δρόσος (''drósos''), meaning "dew", and φίλος (''phílos''), meaning "loving", is a genus of fly, belonging to the family Drosophilidae, whose members are often called "small fruit flies" or p ...

fruit flies. Murthy and colleagues have also published an automated system (LEAP and SLEAP) for measuring animal pose in movies with one or more animals.

Education

Prof. Murthy received her B.S. in biology from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. She was a Burchards scholar in the humanities and won the John L. Asinari prize for outstanding undergraduate research in the life sciences. She then received her PhD in Neuroscience from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, working with Thomas Schwarz and

Richard Scheller Richard H. Scheller (born 30 October 1953) is the former chief science officer and head of therapeutics at 23andMe and the former executive vice president of research and early development at Genentech. He was a professor at Stanford University f ...

. Her thesis research centered on mechanisms of vesicle trafficking to cell membranes. She did postdoctoral work in systems neuroscience with Gilles Laurent at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

as a

Helen Hay Whitney Helen Julia Hay Whitney (March 11, 1875 – September 24, 1944) was an American poet, writer, horse racing, racehorse owner and breeder, socialite, and philanthropist. She was a member by marriage of the prominent Whitney family of New York. Ea ...

fellow stereotypy in the central brain of

, which is a region of the brain important for learning and memory.

Awards and recognition

* The

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

CAREER Award * Alfred P. Sloan fellowship * Klingenstein fellowship * McKnight Scholar award * NINDS Research Program award * Faculty Scholars at Howard Hughes Medical Institute (2016)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murthy, Mala American neuroscientists Living people Princeton University faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Stanford University alumni American women scientists 1975 births American women academics 21st-century American women