Rank Prize Funds Mini-Syposium

Last week (3-6th December, 2007) I attended a Mini-Symposium on Representations of the Visual World in the Brain organised by the Rank Prize Funds. The symposium was a small gathering of highly respected established researchers and young researchers across the field of Visual Science. Attendees included Ron Rensink (UBC), Nancy Kanwisher (MIT), Mike Land (Sussex), Ben Tatler and Ben Vincent (Dundee), Jens Helmert (Dresden), Jim Brockmole (Edinburgh), Melissa Vo (Munich), and many others from across Europe and North America.

The symposium was an incredibly stimulating, intense experience and I have to express my immense gratitude to the Rank Prize Funds for organising it (aside: the Fund was established by the late Lord Rank to support scientific research in his two main interests Nutrition and OptoElectronics; Rank was also the founder of Rank Film....a rather coincidental overlap with my interests). The symposium was held in the wonderfully picaresque Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere, Cumbria. Not that I got to appreciate much of it as I was too busy being intellectually stimulated.

My enjoyment of the symposium was rounded off by my being awarded the Prize for the Best Presentation by a Young Researcher for my presentation entitled 'Facilitation of Return'. It is a great compliment for the work I am doing with John Henderson to be acknowledge by such a distinguished group of researchers.

.....and Lord Rank