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Nicole C. Rust

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Nicole C. Rust
Alma materUniversity of Idaho
New York University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Known forVisual Perception,
Visual Recognition Memory
AwardsSimons Pivot Fellow,
Troland Research Award,
McKnight Scholar,
NSF CAREER Award,
Sloan Fellow
Scientific career
FieldsNeuroscience, Psychology
InstitutionsUniversity of Pennsylvania
Academic advisorsJ. Anthony Movshon
Eero P. Simoncelli
James DiCarlo
Websitewww.nicolecrust.com

Nicole C. Rust is an American neuroscientist, psychologist, and a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Elusive Cures: Why Neuroscience Hasn't Solved Brain Disorders and How We Can Change That.[1] She studies visual perception, visual recognition memory, and mood (psychology). She is recognized for significant advancements in experimental psychology and neuroscience.[2]

Rust was the recipient of the 2021 Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences for her fundamental contributions to understanding how the cortex makes use of complex visual information to guide intelligent behavior.[3] She was named a Simons Pivot Fellow in 2025,[4] a McKnight Foundation Scholar (2013),[5] received an NSF CAREER Award (2013)[6] and was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2010).[7]

Education and early career

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Rust received her bachelor's degree in from the University of Idaho in 1997.[8] She then went on to receive her PhD in Neuroscience from New York University in 2004 under the mentorship of J. Anthony Movshon, and Eero Simoncelli.[9] There, her work focused on how the primate brain processes information about visual motion, including in the primary visual cortex[10] and area MT.[11]

Career and research

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Rust completed postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 2004 and 2006. There she worked under the mentorship of James DiCarlo, studying how the brain identifies the objects that are present in a visual scene.[12]

Rust joined the faculty in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania in 2009. Her lab has focused on understanding how the brain uses visual information to solve different tasks, including finding sought objects[13] and remembering the images that have been encountered.[14]

Rust's group also creates machine learning algorithms that mimic neural circuits of memory.[15]

Science communication

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Rust is the author of the book Elusive Cures: Why Neuroscience Hasn't Solved Brain Disorders and How We Can Change That. [16] In it, she describes her personal journey to understand why brain research has been accelerating rapidly for decades, but the translation of discoveries into treatments and cures has not happened as many expected. She argues that treating a brain disorder is more like redirecting a hurricane than fixing a domino chain of cause and effect, and that only once we embrace the idea of the brain as a complex system do we have any hope of finding cures.

References

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  1. ^ "Elusive Cures". www.arabnews.com. Retrieved 2025-05-11.
  2. ^ "Academy honors 20 for major contributions to science". www.eurekalert.org. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  3. ^ "20210 Troland Research Award". nasonline.org. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  4. ^ "Simons Foundation Announces Third Class of Pivot Fellows". www.simonsfoundation.org. Retrieved 2025-05-11.
  5. ^ "McKnight Scholar Awardees". www.mcknight.org. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  6. ^ "NSF CAREER Award Abstract #1265480". nsf.gov. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  7. ^ "Past Sloan Fellows". sloan.org. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  8. ^ "Nicole Rust Biography". sas.upenn.edu. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  9. ^ "Simons Foundation". simonsfoundation.org. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  10. ^ Rust, NC; Schwartz, O; Movshon, JA; Simoncelli, EP (2005). "Spatiotemporal Elements of Macaque V1 Receptive Fields". Neuron. 46 (6): 945–956. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2005.05.021. PMID 15953422. S2CID 1616716.
  11. ^ Rust, NC; Mante, V; Simoncelli, EP; Movshon, JA (2006). "How MT cells analyze the motion of visual patterns". Nat Neurosci. 9 (11): 1421–31. doi:10.1038/nn1786. PMID 17041595. S2CID 448010.
  12. ^ DiCarlo, JJ; Zoccolan, D; Rust, NC (2012). "How does the brain solve visual object recognition?". Neuron. 73 (3): 415–434. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.01.010. PMC 3306444. PMID 22325196.
  13. ^ Pagan, M; Urban, LS; Wohl, MP; Rust, NC (2013). "Signals in inferotemporal and perirhinal cortex suggest an untangling of visual target information". Nature Neuroscience. 16 (8): 1132–1139. doi:10.1038/nn.3433. PMC 3725208. PMID 23792943.
  14. ^ Meyer, T; Rust, NC (2013). "Single-exposure visual familiarity judgments are reflected in IT cortex". eLife. 7: e32259. doi:10.7554/eLife.32259. PMC 5843407. PMID 29517485.
  15. ^ Jaegle, Andrew; Mehrpour, Vahid; Mohsenzadeh, Yalda; Meyer, Travis; Oliva, Aude; Rust, Nicole (2019-08-29). "Population response magnitude variation in inferotemporal cortex predicts image memorability". eLife. 8: e47596. doi:10.7554/eLife.47596. ISSN 2050-084X. PMC 6715346. PMID 31464687.
  16. ^ "Elusive Cures". www.arabnews.com. Retrieved 2025-05-11.
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