CAMBRIDGE, MA. June 12, 2002- James J. DiCarlo, Assistant Professor at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, has been chosen by the Pew Charitable Trusts, as one of America's "most promising biomedical researchers," to be one of the 2002 Pew Scholars in the Biomedical Sciences.

DiCarlo examines object recognition by the inferotemporal (IT) cortex, which is thought to be critical for visual recognition. He researches how the brain extracts object identity regardless of object position, size, view, illumination, and the presence of distractions. He is particularly interested in how a single object presented at different distances and from different perspectives stimulates the IT region.

DiCarlo was named Investigator at the McGovern Institute and Assistant Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2001. He received his Ph.D. and M.D. from Johns Hopkins University and did postdoctoral work at Baylor College of Medicine. In 1998, he received the Martin and Carol Macht Young Investigator Research Prize from Johns Hopkins University.

"We are pleased that Jim has been selected as a promising young leader in neuroscience," said Phillip A. Sharp, Institute Professor and Director. "His research program studying visual recognition is very exciting and will be advanced by this generous support from the Pew Foundation."

Since 1985, the Trusts have provided more than $73 million for the support of 360 scholars. Each of the scholars, who are junior faculty members at medical schools and research institutions across the United States, will receive a total award of $240,000 to help support his or her research over a four-year period. The awards are granted to young investigators who show outstanding promise in the basic and clinical sciences, are intended to encourage scholarly innovation in their research and to help them advance the state of knowledge in the biomedical sciences. Additional information is available at http://futurehealth.ucsf.edu/press_releases/pewscholars2002.html