Sejnowski Awarded Prestigious Wright Prize

[Randy Ringen]

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE NEWS RELEASE
Office of College Relations, Claremont, California 91711-5990

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                   CONTACT:  Randy Ringen
                                                  or Leslie Baer
SEPTEMBER 19, 1996                                (909) 624-4146
                                                  Ref #: 95/96-47

HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE HONORS BRAIN RESEARCHER TERRENCE J. SEJNOWSKI AS 12TH
RECIPIENT OF THE WRIGHT PRIZE
October 25 lecture is free and open to the public

        CLAREMONT, Calif.-Harvey Mudd College is pleased to announce the
winner of the 1996 Wright Prize for interdisciplinary study in science and
engineering: Terrence J. Sejnowski, a computational neurobiologist, who is
an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a professor at
the at the Salk Institute of Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and a
professor of biology and physics at UC San Diego. Sejnowski will be awarded
$15,000 on Friday, 7 p.m., October 25, in Galileo Hall on the Harvey Mudd
College campus, when he will give his distinguished lecture, "The Century
of the Brain." Admission is free and the event is open to the public.
        Sejnowski, the 12th Wright awardee, the joins the likes of
physicist Freeman Dyson, physician-scientist Jonas Salk, and 1962 Nobel
Prize-winning biologist Francis Crick, who were also honored. He is the
first awardee selected under a new criteria, which seeks to honor
up-and-coming, early-to-mid career researchers in multidisciplinary
research in engineering or the sciences, rather than those already widely
recognized for their accomplishments.
        Sejnowski seeks to understand "the computational resources of
brains, from the biophysical to the systems levels," he said. His research
focuses on how images seen through the eyes are represented in the brain,
how memory is organized, and how vision is used to guide actions. As tools
in his research, Sejnowski employs theoretical models on how the brain
networks this information. He also studies the biophysics of the living
brain.
        As part of the award festivities, Sejnowski will spend two days at
Harvey Mudd College, offering the October 25 public lecture, as well as
student seminars and informal exchanges with faculty on October 24.
        "The basic educational philosophy holds interdisciplinary study to
be essential in furthering our understanding of science and engineering,"
said HMC President Henry E. Riggs. "The events surrounding the awarding of
the prize give students and faculty alike an opportunity to exchange ideas
with a young researcher whose work spans several fields," he said.  "Beyond
that," he added, "the lecture will present to the public the latest
information on the exciting discoveries made concerning how the brain
works."
        Sejnowski graduated summa cum laude from Case Western Reserve
University with a B.S. in physics. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in
physics from Princeton. After teaching at The Johns Hopkins University, he
became a senior member and professor at the Salk Institute and a professor
at UC San Diego. He has received numerous awards, including a Presidential
Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, WAS A
Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at the California Institute of Technology,
and has delivered numerous honorary lectures at the University of
Wisconsin; Cambridge University; the Royal Institution, London; and the
International Congress of Physiological Sciences. He has published more
than 100 scientific articles and  coauthored one book. He is the
editor-in-chief of "Neural Computation," published by the MIT Press, and
serves on the editorial boards of 17 scientific journals.
        Harvey Mudd College, one of The Claremont Colleges, is an
undergraduate coeducational institution of engineering, science, and
mathematics that also places strong emphasis on humanities and the social
sciences. The college's aim is to graduate engineers and scientists
sensitive to the impact of their work on society. Harvey Mudd College ranks
among the nation's leading schools in percentage of graduates who earn
Ph.D. degrees. The college has been consistently ranked among the top
engineering undergraduate specialty schools in the nation by U.S.News &
World Report. In a recent study published in Change magazine, in which 212
colleges and universities were ranked, Harvey Mudd College is among an
elite group of just 11 institutions that are classified as "High-High,"
rated outstanding for both their teaching and their research.
                                    -end-