Eva Pastalkova, Postdoctoral Research Associate of Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, Named Blavatnik Awards Finalist

(Newark, NJ) - Neuroscientist Eva Pastalkova of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience (CMBN) at Rutgers University in Newark has been selected as one of 12 finalists for the prestigious 2009 New York Academy of Sciences Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. Created in 2007, the Blavatnik Awards honor the most noteworthy young scientists and engineers from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Pastalkova is among a class of scholars from Columbia, Cornell, Princeton and Yale. The 2009 finalists will be honored and the winners announced at the academy’s 6^th annual Science & the City Gala on November 16.

For the past five years, Pastalkova has been a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of Prof. Gyorgy Buzsaki at CMBN. She received her master’s and doctoral degrees in neuroscience from Charlese University in Prague in 1999 and 2003, respectively. A resident of Bloomfield, New Jersey, Pastalkova is currently studying the mechanisms of internally generated cell activity in the hippocampus, a major component of the brain that plays an important role in long-term memory and spatial navigation. For more information about Pastalkova and her research, visit http://osiris.rutgers.edu/~eva/Neuroscience.html.

Media Contact: Helen Paxton
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E-mail: paxton@andromeda.rutgers.edu