Linda Spear Mid-Career Award
Flux 2025 Linda Spear Mid-Career Award Winner
Margaret Sheridan, PhD
Associate Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
Dr. Sheridan attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley, where she investigated function of the prefrontal cortex in children with and without exposure to poverty and ADHD. Next, as a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health, she examined adversity exposure, poverty, and social inequality as determinants of health in collaboration with a wide variety of scholars in other social science disciplines. Subsequently, as an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School she established a lab examining the association of brain development with adversity exposures such as institutionalization, maltreatment, and poverty.
In 2015, she joined the department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill where her primary research agenda is to identify how and when early adverse experiences come to enhance risk for psychopathology through their impact on neural development. Together with her colleague, Kate McLaughlin, she developed the Dimensional Model of Adversity and Psychopathology (DMAP) which posits different pathways for the impact of specific types of adversity on neural structure and function. Dr. Sheridan has over 170 publications and is the PI and co-PI on multiple cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations of
the impact of adversity on neurocognitive processes funded by the NIH. For the last 20 years, since her earliest work in graduate school, she has used neuroimaging to study neural function and structure in childhood and adolescence and longitudinally across development. She published some of the first studies examining neural correlates of cognitive control in children with psychopathology and exposure to adversity. Dr. Sheridan’s research has featured in the media, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal and she is routinely an invited speaker at national and international conferences.
Dr. Linda Spear was a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York, Binghamton. She was one of the true pioneers of developmental cognitive neuroscience. Her seminal work, using rodent models to investigate neurobehavioral function during adolescence, and the translation of that work to understanding effects of substance use on human development, has been greatly influential to the field. The importance of her contributions to the field was recognized in 2017 when Flux presented her with the Huttenlocher Award, our Society’s highest recognition for career achievement. She was an incredible human being, kind, humble, and supportive. This award is named for her in honor of her considerable achievements, her kindness, and her stalwart support of her colleagues.
The Mid-Career Award in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience is named in honor of Dr. Linda Spear, a pioneer in developmental neuroscience. This award recognizes outstanding contributions by scientists at the mid-level of their careers.
Nominations will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
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- Originality of the work
- Excellence of the work
- Significance of the work
- Rigorousness of the work
- Commitment and promise to the field
- Engagement in science communication and outreach
- Efforts to foster open science
- Advocacy for diversity and inclusion
The award winner receives complimentary registration and a 30-minute presentation slot at the next Flux Congress.
Eligibility Criteria
Scientists eligible for this award should be a member of the Flux Society and have been working in the area of developmental cognitive neuroscience for at least 8 years following their terminal degree (e.g. PhD, DPhil, MD), but not for more than 19 years. Caregiving leave or time spent in clinical training do not count toward the 19 year limit.
Nominations can be submitted via the button below. Self-nominations are also welcome.
Application materials
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- Nomination letter: The nomination letter should address how the nominee meets all the criteria for excellence.
- Three papers: Include three papers that should be emphasized in the evaluation
- Nominee’s CV
Previous Winners
2024 Winner
Jennifer Pfeifer, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, where she is PI of the Developmental Social Neuroscience lab and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience. Her program of research focuses on the interconnected trajectories of biological and social development throughout adolescence, and their bidirectional transactional relationships with mental health and behavior. She has proposed a conceptual model of how pubertal and neural development launches cascading changes in social processes and adolescent-emergent mental health problems, and more broadly her work has highlighted the importance of understanding social brain development during adolescence. Her laboratory is known for conducting research that prioritizes longitudinal techniques, ecological validity, and transparent and reproducible practices in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Her work has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Science Foundation, Oregon Medical Research Foundation, and Hopelab. She is Co-Director of the National Scientific Council on Adolescence, a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and was awarded the Early Career Research Contributions Award by the Society for Research on Child Development.
Interview with Jennifer Pfeifer (September 2024)
2023 Winner
2023 Winner: Lucina Uddin, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
2022 Winner
2022 Winner: Nim Tottenham, Columbia University, USA
Nim Tottenham, PhD is a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University and Director of the Developmental Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Her research examines brain development underlying emotional behavior in humans. In particular, her laboratory investigates the interplay between brain development and the special caregiving experienced by humans. Her research has highlighted fundamental changes in brain circuitry across development and the powerful role that early experiences, such as caregiving and stress, have on the construction of these circuits. She has authored over 125 journal articles and book chapters. She is a frequent lecturer both nationally and internationally on human brain and emotional development. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and of the Society for Experimental Psychologists, and her scientific contributions have been recognized by the National Institute of Mental Health BRAINS Award, the American Psychological Association’s Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contribution to Psychology, most recently by the National Academy of Sciences Troland Research Award.
One-on-One Interview with Nim Tottenham (July 2022)
Congratulations to Dr. Nim Tottenham, this year’s winner of the Linda Spear Mid-Career Award recognizing her outstanding contributions in developmental neuroscience! Dr. Tottenham is currently a Professor of Psychology at Columbia University, where she leads the Developmental Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Her research focuses on understanding brain development underlying emotional behavior, or as she puts it herself, “the brain development that helps support the massive changes in emotional behaviors that we experience throughout the first two decades of life and the powerful role that parents play in shaping that brain development.”