Marlene Behrmann (born April 14, 1959) is a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

in the Department of

Ophthalmology Ophthalmology (, ) is the branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis, treatment, and surgery of eye diseases and disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a ...

at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The university is composed of seventeen undergraduate and graduate schools and colle ...

. She was previously a

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

. She specializes in the

cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to detect light and use it to form an image of the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment. Photodetection without image formation is classified as ''light sensing''. In most vertebrates, visual percept ...

, with a specific focus on

object recognition Object recognition – technology in the field of computer vision for finding and identifying objects in an image or video sequence. Humans recognize a multitude of objects in images with little effort, despite the fact that the image of the ...

Education

Marlene Behrmann was born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

, South Africa, April 14, 1959. She received a B.A. in speech and hearing therapy from the University of Witwatersrand in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

in 1981; an M.A. in speech pathology from the University of Witwatersrand in 1984, and a Ph.D. in

from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

in 1991.

Career and research

From 1991 to 1993, Behrmann worked in the Departments of Psychology and

Medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...

of the

, and in 1993, she accepted a position as a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at

, where she remained until moving to the Department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pittsburgh in 2022. She has also held an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, but the term is gen ...

ship in the Departments of

Neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

and

Communication Disorders A communication disorder is any disorder that affects an individual's ability to comprehend, detect, or apply language and speech to engage in dialogue effectively with others. This also encompasses deficiencies in verbal and non-verbal communic ...

at the

, and she has served as a visiting professor at the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

in 2000-2001 and the

in 2006–2007. Behrmann is a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and the Neuroscience Institute. Behrmann's research addresses a specific question: How does the brain assemble a meaningful and coherent interpretation of the sparse information received from the eyes? Widely considered to be a trailblazer and a worldwide leader in the field of visual cognition, Behrmann uses neuroimaging and psychophysics to study the human visual system in health and disease to answer this question.

Awards and honors

* 2015, elected member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

* 2019, member,

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

* Fellow,

Society of Experimental Psychologists The Society of Experimental Psychologists (SEP), originally called the Society of Experimentalists, is an academic society for experimental psychologists. It was founded by Edward Bradford Titchener in 1904 to be an ongoing workshop in which mem ...

, * Fellow,

Cognitive Science Society The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind. The society prom ...

* Fellow, Cognitive Neuroscience Society

Representative papers

* * * * * * * * *

References

External links

*
Behrmann Lab
at University of Pittsburgh Department of Ophthalmology {{DEFAULTSORT:Behrmann, Marlene 1959 births Living people American cognitive neuroscientists American women neuroscientists American women psychologists University of the Witwatersrand alumni University of Toronto alumni Academic staff of the University of Toronto Carnegie Mellon University faculty Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Place of birth missing (living people) People from Johannesburg Jewish women scientists Jewish American scientists Neuroimaging researchers 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists South African emigrants to the United States 20th-century American psychologists Recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers