The FENS Regional Meeting Committee
The FENS Regional Meeting Committee (FRM) is a special committee which advises the Executive Committee and the Governing Council on the proposals received from the societies.
Chairperson
Irene Tracey, United Kingdom
FENS President-elect
2020-2022
Professor Irene Tracey is Warden of Merton College, Oxford University, her alma mater and one of the University’s oldest Colleges dating back to 1264; she is also Professor of Anaesthetic Neuroscience and Pro-Vice Chancellor at Oxford. Subsequent to a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard, she was a founding member of the now world-leading Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB – now WIN) and was its director from 2005 until 2015 whilst holding the Nuffield Chair in Anaesthetic Sciences. She was Head of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences prior to taking up her current role.
Over the past 20 years, her multidisciplinary research team has contributed to our understanding of pain perception, pain relief and nociceptive processing within the human central nervous system using advanced neuroimaging techniques and novel paradigm designs. They also investigate the neural basis of altered states of consciousness induced by anaesthetic agents.
Irene serves and has served science through her election to Councils of: International Association for the Study of Pain, British Neuroscience Association, Lundbeck Brain Prize Committee and Council of the Medical Research Council. She was awarded the triennial Patrick Wall Medal (2008) and made an FRCA by the Royal College of Anaesthetists (2009); elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2015); won the Feldberg Foundation Prize (2017) and British Neuroscience Association’s Outstanding Contribution to Neuroscience award (2018). She was recently elected to the Academia Europaea (2020).
Prof. Tracey is the FENS President-elect 2020-2022.
Committee Members
Patricia Gaspar, France
Chair CHET Committee
2020-2022
Patricia Gaspar is an Emeritus researcher of INSERM (Institut pour la Santé et la Recherche Médicale), working at the Paris Brain Institute. She trained as an MD in neurology and neuropathology (1983), and obtained a PhD in neuropharmacology from the University Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris (1985). She obtained a full-time research position at the INSERM as group leader and then laboratory director at the Salpêtrière Hospital. She co-headed the Institut du Fer à Moulin (2007-2012) and directed the Ecole des Neurosciences de Paris (2010-14). The main aim of her research has been to better our understanding of the developmental basis of neuropsychiatric disorders. She has largely focused on the developmental role of serotonin (5-HT). Among the current research themes in the laboratory are projects aimed to identify mechanisms the role of 5-HT in parental behavior and early life stress.
She had the opportunity to work 2 years abroad: as MD in Tunisia, (Center of Neurology of Tunis :1979-1980) and as a visiting professor in the US (Jon Kaas laboratory, University of Vanderbilt: 1990-91). Throughout her career, she been involved in a number of general interest tasks for evaluation of research in France and abroad.
Jean-Antoine Girault, France
FENS President
2020-2022
Jean-Antoine Girault MD, PhD (France) is an Inserm Research and since 2012 Director, Laboratory of Excellence “Biology for Psychiatry” (Bio-Psy Labex), Paris. He was the Head of the Institut du Fer à Moulin (Inserm and Sorbonne University) in Paris until September 2020.
His research focuses on the signalling mechanisms involved in the plasticity of the nervous system, in normal and pathological conditions.
Jean-Antoine Girault has published over 200 research articles. He has received numerous awards and honours, including the Brixham Foundation Prize in 2016, the Lamonica Prize for Neurology (French National Academy of Sciences grand prize) in 2013 and an ERC Advanced Research grant in 2010. Member of various professional committees, President of the French Neuroscience Society in 2015-2017, Jean-Antoine Girault also actively contributed to the coordination of neuroscience research and training in Paris region.
Jean-Antoine Girault is the FENS President for 2020-2022.
Manuel Mameli, Switzerland
Member of the Programme Committee
2020-2022
Manuel Mameli obtained his master’s degree in Biology, Specialty Neuroscience, at the University of Cagliari. After that he joined the laboratory of Prof. C. Fernando Valenzuela at the University of New Mexico as predoctoral fellow. During this time, he received an in-depth training as an in vitro electrophysiologist by Dr. Mario Carta and Prof. C. Valenzuela. He then went on to pursue his doctoral studies at the University of Geneva in the laboratory of Prof. Christian Lüscher, where he also stayed as a postdoctoral fellow. In 2010, Manuel initially joined the Institut du Fer à Moulin INSERM Unit 839 directed by Dr. Jean-Antoine Girault, as a Junior Group Leader
before he obtained a Research position at INSERM. He then became Associate Professor at the Department of Fundamental Neuroscience at the University of Lausanne in 2017. His research wants to understand the circuit-specific synaptic and cellular modifications guiding motivated behaviours. Using a combination of approaches he aims to dissect brain function in physiological and pathological states such as addiction and depression using rodents as a model.
Manuel is a Member of the Fens-Kavli Network of Excellence and recipient of the Anna Monika Foundation Research Prize.
Angela Roberts, United Kingdom
Chair of the Programme Committee
2020-2022
Angela Roberts graduated from the University of Sussex with a degree in Neurobiology and then obtained a PhD in Neuroendocrinology at the Department of Anatomy, University of Cambridge. She stayed on in Cambridge to conduct postdoctoral studies and following four years as a Royal Society University Research Fellow she was appointed lecturer in the Department of Anatomy in 1996. There she developed a research programme to study prefrontal circuits underlying the regulation of positive and negative emotion in primates. She combines neural, pharmacological, cardiovascular, neuroimaging and genetic techniques to dissect out the role of distinct prefrontal circuits, and their modulation by the monoamines, in the regulation of threat and reward elicited responses, relevant to our understanding of symptoms of anxiety and anhedonia in neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Her research is funded by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. She was appointed Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience and Professorial fellow of Girton College in 2009 and was elected a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016. In 2020 she was awarded the Goldman-Rakic Prize for outstanding achievements in cognitive neuroscience.
Angela has previously served on the councils for the European Brain and Behaviour Society and British Association for Psychopharmacology. She is currently Associate Editor at Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience and sits on the advisory board for Neuron.
