When we learn vocabulary or remember our most recent holiday, this involves proteins in our brain that form at the synapses between neurons. This is what the neuroscientist Erin Schuman has discovered, thereby revolutionizing our understanding of how neurons function. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Körber European Science Prize, worth one million euros, in Hamburg on September 20, 2024.
Equal opportunities for women in research
Accompanied by her French husband Gilles Laurent, likewise an eminent neuroscientist, her three school-age daughters and the family’s pets, Erin Schuman came to Germany from the United States in 2009. The two world-class scientists built up two new departments at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt am Main.
Besides her own research, Erin Schuman was keen to pursue another important goal. The institute’s new building was provided with an annex featuring a nursery, a baby changing room and a nursing room because she knew from her own experience as a scientist and mother just how difficult it can be for women in research: if they stop working for too long to care for their children they will get left behind and no longer keep pace with current research. Schuman was determined that her future colleagues would not be forced to choose between an academic career and a family. At the same time, she campaigned to increase the proportion of women in leading scientific positions.
“It has been an all-consuming task for us,” recalls Schuman. “We built a new place that is inspiring and full of energy and discovery to train people from Germany and around the world and to make new discoveries about the brain.” This is how the scientist, who was born in California in 1963 and has won numerous awards, got where she is today. Besides her scientific work, she enjoys “a relatively quiet life in Frankfurt. We have made friends in the neighborhood and on the tennis court.” She has found it painful being separated by an ocean from her family and friends because of her job, however. As a cosmopolitan woman in the world of international science she travels a lot and particularly appreciates the fact that her institute is located in Frankfurt, a hub with excellent transport links to many other European cities.
Alongside her research and her efforts to get more women into science, she and her husband, together with other colleagues, have committed themselves to critically engaging with their institute’s history during the period of National Socialism. Two years ago, a monument to the victims of the Nazi era, designed by artists with cognitive impairments, was installed in the foyer of the building.
