Bright Spark

Auckland University’s Johanna Montgomery has become the first southern hemisphere scientist in history to win a prestigious Eppendorf and Science Prize for Neurobiology. Dr Montgomery was one of 4 scientists to be awarded the prize, as judged by a team of world-leading neurobiologists and the Editor-In-Chief of premiere scientific journal, Science. Her essay, Synapses in a State: A Molecular Mechanism to Encode Synaptic History and Future Synapse Function, outlines her years of research into the synapses of the human brain, which are responsible for behaviour, understanding, learning and memory. “I almost didn’t enter it because I didn’t think I had any chance of winning, and then I did win and I was just absolutely rapt,” says Montgomery. “The prize is also a big thing for NZ neuroscience research because it’s the first time anybody in this part of the world has won this award.”