Winners of 2016 Kavli Prizes for Astrophysics, Nanoscience and Neuroscience Announced

This year’s laureates were selected for the direct detection of gravitational waves, the invention and realization of atomic force microscopy, and for the discovery of mechanisms that allow experience and neural activity to remodel brain function.
 
The Kavli Prize in Astrophysics goes to Ronald W.P. Drever, Kip S. Thorne andRainer Weiss. Gerd Binnig, Christoph Gerber and Calvin Quate share the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. The Kavli Prize in Neuroscience goes to Eve Marder,Michael Merzenich and Carla Shatz.
 
The Kavli Prize is awarded by The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and consists of a cash award of 1 million US dollars in each field. The laureates receive in addition a gold medal and a scroll. Today’s announcement was made by Ole M. Sejersted, President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, and transmitted live to New York as part of a World Science Festival event where France Córdova, Director of the National Science Foundation, delivered the keynote address.

The Kavli Prize in Neuroscience is shared between Eve Marder, Brandeis University, USA, Michael Merzenich, University of California San Francisco, USA, and Carla Shatz, Stanford University, USA. They receive the prize “for the discovery of mechanisms that allow experience and neural activity to remodel brain function”. 

For more detailed information on each of the prizes, the 2016 laureates and their work, the Kavli Prize and all the events, please see the Kavli Prize website:

www.kavliprize.org.