Erin M. Schuman

Erin Schuman is a neurobiologist and Director at Max Planck Institute for Brain Research. Her lab studies the molecular and cell biological processes that control protein synthesis and degradation in neurons and their synapses. Following on the lab’s initial discovery that proteins made locally in dendrites are required for synaptic plasticity, they have pursued the identification of the mRNA and ribosome population present in neuronal dendrites and axons. In addition, they are elucidating the population of mRNAs translated in subcellular compartments as well as the nature and format of ribosomes present.

Schuman is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and the National Academy of Sciences. Her awards include the Society for Neuroscience’s Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award, the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine, and The Brain Prize. She previously served as Professor at California Institute of Technology and Investigator at How Ward Hughes Medical Institute. She holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Princeton University.