Early Career Award

The BCI Society Early Career Award

After exciting editions of the BCI Society Early Career Award (ECA) in 2020 and 2021, the BCI Society is pleased to announce ECA 2023. Recognizing the multidisciplinary character of the BCI field, this year’s ECAs will encompass the biological, methodological, and translational aspects of the field. Nominees must have a history of scholarly work that has advanced the field. More specifically, the ECA 2023 will recognize an individual or individuals who have contributed significantly to i) an understanding of brain structure/function, and/or brain signals related to BCIs, and/or ii) scientific progress of BCI research through development of algorithms, software and/or hardware related to BCIs and/or, iii) BCI application or end-user-oriented research. The ECA will be presented in early 2024.

Evaluation

The ECA 2023 edition is awarded to Sergey Stavisky. The jurors unanimously acknowledged the outstanding scientific achievements of this candidate’s early professional career, the translational impact of the candidate’s work, and his active involvement in the BCI community.

The jurors would like to emphasize that all candidates were very good and much discussion went into this decision

2023 Early Career Award Recipients

Sergey Stavisky

Sergey Stavisky

University of California, Davis

Dr. Sergey Stavisky received his Sc.B. in Neuroscience from Brown University in 2008, after which he worked as a research engineer in the BrainGate group for two years. Sergey completed his PhD in neurosciences at Stanford University in 2016, where he studied motor cortical control of reaching and developed brain-computer interfaces in a preclinical monkey model in the lab of Prof. Krishna Shenoy. He then completed a postdoctoral training in the Stanford Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory, mentored by Profs. Jaimie Henderson and Shenoy. There he focused on both the scientific and engineering challenges necessary to develop BCIs to restore the ability of clinical trial participants with paralysis to speak and make reach and grasp movements. In 2021 he started his tenure-track faculty position in the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, Davis, where he co-directs the UC Davis Neuroprosthetics Lab. His group is currently focused on understanding and restoring speech production and bringing next-generation neural interface technology to human health applications.

Application information — CLOSED

An eligible candidate for the 2023 ECAs:

  • Is a member-in-good-standing of the BCI Society;
  • Is within 10 years of earning their first terminal degree (MD or PhD). Thus, researchers with less experience, including postdocs, are also eligible. The BCI Society Awards Committee will give special considerations for breaks for parenting leave, medical leave, or military service;
  • Must accept the nomination;
  • Must agree to provide the Society with the following if s/he wins the award:
    • A picture and a brief biosketch, highlighting contributions to the BCI field;
    • A short talk at the next BCI Meeting (June 2025).

Applications for the Early Career Award must include the following:

  • Nomination form, which includes a half-page summary of why this nominee deserves an award;
  • An updated CV of the nominee (5 pages max) in the format of the NIH biosketch (https://grants.nih.gov/grants/forms/biosketch.htm; ERA Commons number not required), which includes a personal statement about why the applicant should be considered;
  • Two letters of recommendation (maximum one page) from people other than the nominator;
  • If applicable, an up to one-page summary of the special considerations (such as for military service, parenting leave, or medical leave) that explain why the nominee should be considered for more than ten years after the first terminal degree.

Please use only pdf formatting for these documents.

Important for nominators:

  • The nominator must be a regular member of the BCI Society in good standing;
  • Self-nominations are allowed;
  • Members of the BCI Society Board or Awards Committee may not be nominated;
  • Each BCI Society Member may nominate a maximum of two persons.

ECAs will be presented in early 2024.

2021 Recipients

Camille Jeunet
Aquitaine Institute for Cognitive and Integrative Neuroscience, Univ. Bordeaux & CNRS, France

Frank Willett
Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory, Stanford University, USA

2020 Recipient

Sebastian Halder
Lecturer, University of Essex

Thank you to our jurors for the 2023 Early Career Awards:

Anne Marie Brouwer
Jane Huggins
Natalie Mcrachacz-Kersting
François Cabestaing
Moritz Grosse-Wentrup