Mary Beth Hatten, a member of Hollins’ class of 1971, is the recipient of the prestigious Max Cowan Award for 2015.
Presented by the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Wiley Publishers in conjunction with The Cajal Club, the Cowan Award is given in odd-numbered years to a neuroscientist for outstanding work in developmental neuroscience.
Hatten is the Frederick P. Rose Professor in the Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology at The Rockefeller University in New York City. After completing her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry at Hollins, she earned a Ph.D. in biochemical sciences from Princeton University in 1975 and went on to do her postdoctoral research in neuroscience at Harvard Medical School. She was on the New York University School of Medicine faculty from 1978 to 1987 and then at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. She came to Rockefeller in 1992 and was named the Frederick P. Rose Professor in 2000. In 2005, Hatten was Wiersma Visiting Professor of Neuroscience at the California Institute of Technology.
In 1991, Hatten received the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience Investigator Award, the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award, and a Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation. Her other honors include the Irma T. Hirschl Fund Career Scientist Award (1980); the Pew Neuroscience Award (1988); and the Weil Award from the American Association of Neuropathologists (1996). She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Hatten was officially presented the Cowan Award during the Cajal Club Social on October 18 in Chicago. The club was founded in 1947 to provide an opportunity for neuroscientists with special interests in the structure and function of the nervous system to associate; contribute to the welfare of neuroanatomy and neuroatomists; and revere the founder of modern neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal.
