2021 Banners Troland Frank
Michael J. Frank, Carney Center for Computational Brain Science, Carney Institute for Brain Science, Brown University, received a 2021 Troland Research Award.
Frank has made groundbreaking discoveries in our understanding of learning, valuation, and cognitive control. His contributions emerge from innovative integration across multiple levels of computational modeling and experiment linking brain to mind. This work has directed progress in domains spanning animal and human studies, and helped define the emerging field of computational psychiatry and neurology.
A primary driver of theoretical advances in learning and decision making for more than 15 years, Frank’s work has advanced the understanding of deep underlying cognitive algorithms and their biological mechanisms through computational models and original experimentation.
Beyond his groundbreaking theoretical and experimental advances, Frank has created new strategies for integrating computation with experimentation, and further mapping these findings to real-world applications. Most notably, he is a co-creator and an active leader in the new and emerging field of computational psychiatry, building a deeply theoretically principled link from psychological and neuroscientific insights to clinical definition and ultimately practice.
Two Troland Research Awards of $75,000 are given annually to recognize unusual achievement by early-career researchers (preferably 45 years of age or younger) and to further empirical research within the broad spectrum of experimental psychology. The Troland Research Award was established by a trust created in 1931 by the bequest of Leonard T. Troland.
