Anya Hurlbert

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The Right Honourable

The Viscountess Ridley
BornApril 1958 (age 65)
Alma mater Princeton University (BS)
Cambridge University
(MASt, MA)
MIT (PhD)
Harvard Medical School (MD)
Spouse
​
(m. 1989)​
Children2
Scientific career
FieldsVision science
Institutions Newcastle University, UK
Doctoral advisor Tomaso Poggio and Peter Schiller

Anya Christine Hurlbert, [1] also known as Viscountess Ridley (born April 1958 [2] ), is a British academic who is Professor of Visual Neuroscience and Dean of Advancement at Newcastle University. Her research involves the study of the interaction between colour and light, and how these are interpreted by the human brain. [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Daughter of Dr Robert Boston Hurlbert (1926–2011), chief of the Nucleotide Metabolism section at the U.T. MD Anderson Hospital at Houston, Texas from 1962 to 1985, and Janina (née Patmalnieks), a clinical chemist at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Houston, [1] [4] Hurlbert was interested in science from a young age and was supported by her family. As a teenager she was interested in both mathematics and the brain. [5]

She studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in physics. In 1982 she was awarded a Marshall scholarship and took a Part III Diploma in Theoretical Physics followed by an MA in physiology at Cambridge University. She was awarded a doctorate from MIT in 1989 in the area of brain and cognitive sciences and the following year gained an MD from Harvard Medical School. She then moved back to the UK and held a Wellcome Trust Vision Research Fellowship at Oxford University working with Andrew Parker. [6]

Career

Hurlbert's educational background within physics, medicine and neuroscience led to her appointment as a lecturer at Newcastle University in 1991, later becoming Professor of Visual Neuroscience. In 2003 Hurlbert was acting Head of the Division of Psychology, Brain and Behaviour (Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering) and then interim Head in 2007. She was involved in development of the new School of Psychology in the university's Faculty of Medical Sciences. [6]

In 2004 she was co-founder with Colin Ingram of the Institute of Neuroscience and its co-director until 2014. In 2012 she was involved in founding the Centre for Translational Systems Neuroscience at the university, part-funded by the Wellcome Trust. Among her external roles is as a member of Advisory Council of the Institute of Advanced Study at Durham University. [6]

The focus of her research is on human visual perception, specifically how brains create and stabilise colour so that people see colours, often in different ways. This makes use of physics, psychology and neurobiology and she has developed technologies and algorithms to investigate colour constancy and perception. Her research has been applied in several very different areas including some medical conditions, artwork and exhibitions and also quality control of food. [7] Her research group has also studied differing colour preferences among young men and women. [8]

Hurlbert and colleagues participated in discussion about the science behind the 2015 social media event #the dress where people disagreed on whether it was black and royal blue, or white and gold in colour. The Newcastle scientists considered it from the aspect of individual perception of colour constancy. [9] [10]

In July 2022 Hurlbert was appointed as a trustee of the Science Museum Group for a period of 4 years from 1 November 2022 until 31 October 2026. [11]

Awards and honours

Hurlbert is a member of the Scientific Consultative Group, National Gallery, London and was the scientist trustee of the gallery from 2010 until 2018. [7]

She is a member of the Optoelectronics Committee of the Rank Prize Funds.

She is a member of the advisory board of Current Biology , [12] the editorial board of Journal of Vision , and the board of directors of the Vision Sciences Society.

She is a member of the advisory board to the GestaltReVision Methusalem Programme, held by Johan Wagemans at KU Leuven in Belgium. [7]

In 2020 she was the guest in an episode of The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4. [13]

Personal life

Hurlbert is married to Matt Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, and they have a son and a daughter. [14] [15]

Selected publications

Papers, Commentaries, and Articles

Book Chapters

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perception</span> Interpretation of sensory information

Perception is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system. Vision involves light striking the retina of the eye; smell is mediated by odor molecules; and hearing involves pressure waves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color constancy</span> How humans perceive color

Color constancy is an example of subjective constancy and a feature of the human color perception system which ensures that the perceived color of objects remains relatively constant under varying illumination conditions. A green apple for instance looks green to us at midday, when the main illumination is white sunlight, and also at sunset, when the main illumination is red. This helps us identify objects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Color vision</span> Ability to perceive differences in light frequency

Color vision, a feature of visual perception, is an ability to perceive differences between light composed of different frequencies independently of light intensity. Color perception is a part of the larger visual system and is mediated by a complex process between neurons that begins with differential stimulation of different types of photoreceptors by light entering the eye. Those photoreceptors then emit outputs that are propagated through many layers of neurons and then ultimately to the brain. Color vision is found in many animals and is mediated by similar underlying mechanisms with common types of biological molecules and a complex history of evolution in different animal taxa. In primates, color vision may have evolved under selective pressure for a variety of visual tasks including the foraging for nutritious young leaves, ripe fruit, and flowers, as well as detecting predator camouflage and emotional states in other primates.

Margaret Stratford Livingstone is the Takeda Professor of Neurobiology in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School in the field of visual perception. She authored the book Vision and Art: The Biology of Seeing. She was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020.

Chromatic adaptation is the human visual system’s ability to adjust to changes in illumination in order to preserve the appearance of object colors. It is responsible for the stable appearance of object colors despite the wide variation of light which might be reflected from an object and observed by our eyes. A chromatic adaptation transform (CAT) function emulates this important aspect of color perception in color appearance models.

The opponent process is a color theory that states that the human visual system interprets information about color by processing signals from photoreceptor cells in an antagonistic manner. The opponent-process theory suggests that there are three opponent channels, each comprising an opposing color pair: red versus green, blue versus yellow, and black versus white (luminance). The theory was first proposed in 1892 by the German physiologist Ewald Hering.

Vision science is the scientific study of visual perception. Researchers in vision science can be called vision scientists, especially if their research spans some of the science's many disciplines.

Subjective constancy or perceptual constancy is the perception of an object or quality as constant even though our sensation of the object changes. While the physical characteristics of an object may not change, in an attempt to deal with the external world, the human perceptual system has mechanisms that adjust to the stimulus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dale Purves</span> American physician

Dale Purves is Geller Professor of Neurobiology Emeritus in the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences where he remains Research Professor with additional appointments in the department of Psychology and Brain Sciences, and the department of Philosophy at Duke University. He earned a B.A. from Yale University in 1960 and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1964. After further clinical training as a surgical resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital, service as a Peace Corps physician, and postdoctoral training at Harvard and University College London, he was appointed to the faculty at Washington University School of Medicine in 1973. He came to Duke in 1990 as the founding chair of the Department of Neurobiology at Duke Medical Center, and was subsequently Director of Duke's Center for Cognitive Neuroscience (2003-2009) and also served as the Director of the Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore (2009-2013).

Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision, color vision, scotopic vision, and mesopic vision, using light in the visible spectrum reflected by objects in the environment. This is different from visual acuity, which refers to how clearly a person sees. A person can have problems with visual perceptual processing even if they have 20/20 vision.

Bevil Conway is a neuroscientist and artist, and an expert in color. Conway specialises in visual perception in his scientific work, and he often explores the limitations of the visual system in his artwork. At Wellesley College, Conway was Knafel Assistant Professor of Natural Science from 2007 to 2011, and associate professor of Neuroscience until 2016. He was a founding member of the Neuroscience Department at ey. Prior to joining the Wellesley faculty, Conway helped establish the Kathmandu University Medical School in Nepal, where he taught as assistant professor in 2002–03. He currently runs the Sensation, Cognition and Action Unit in the Laboratory of Sensorimotor Research at the National Eye Institute and the National Institute of Mental Health.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Troscianko</span>

Tomasz Stanisław Trościanko (1953–2011) (Tom) was born in Munich, at the time part of West Germany, of Polish parents, Anna and Wiktor Trościanko. As a stateless child, aged nine, he travelled alone to England to attend Fawley Court Polish school in Henley-on-Thames. He studied Physics at the University of Manchester and a subsequent job with Kodak led to a PhD in optometry and visual science at City University, London. From 2000 onward he was Professor of Psychology, first at the University of Sussex and then at the University of Bristol, where he worked until his death in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The dress</span> Viral phenomenon regarding the colour of a dress

The dress was a 2015 online viral phenomenon centred on a photograph of a dress. Viewers disagreed on whether the dress was blue and black, or white and gold. The phenomenon revealed differences in human colour perception and became the subject of scientific investigations into neuroscience and vision science.

Peter Lennie is a British-born neuroscientist and academic administrator. He is the Jay Last Distinguished University Professor at the University of Rochester, in Rochester, New York, and the executive director of the Worldwide Universities Network.

Memory color is the canonical hue of a type of object that allistic human observers acquire through their experiences with instances of that type. For example, most allistic human observers know that an apple typically has a reddish hue; this knowledge about the canonical color which is represented in memory constitutes a memory color.

<i>Annual Review of Vision Science</i> Academic journal

The Annual Review of Vision Science is an academic journal published by Annual Reviews. In publication since 2015, this journal covers significant developments in the field of vision science with an annual volume of review articles. It is edited by David H. Brainard, John H. R. Maunsell, and J. Anthony Movshon. As of 2023, Journal Citation Reports gives the journal a 2022 impact factor of 6.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John S. Werner</span> Human vision research scientist

John S. Werner is an American scientist who studies human vision and its changes across the life span. He is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis in the Department of Ophthalmology and Vision Science, and Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior. His work has been cited ~ 17,000 times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Schiller (neuroscientist)</span> Neuroscientist

Peter H. Schiller is a professor emeritus of Neuroscience in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is well known for his work on the behavioral, neurophysiological and pharmacological studies of the primate visual and oculomotor systems.

Julie Marie Harris has been Director of Research in the School of Psychology and Neuroscience (2011–21) and a Professor of Vision Science at the University of St Andrews. Her research investigates visual systems and camouflage.

David Hoyt Brainard is an American psychologist who researches visual perception. He is the RRL Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, fellow of The Optical Society, Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, and the Association for Psychological Science, and co-editor of the Annual Review of Vision Science.

References

  1. 1 2 "Anya C. Hurlbert Becomes a Bride". The New York Times. 17 December 1989. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  2. ↑ "Anne Anya Christine". Companies House . Retrieved 6 November 2021.
  3. ↑ "Anya Hurlbert: Dean of Advancement". Newcastle University . Retrieved 4 January 2022.
  4. ↑ "Robert Hurlbert Obituary (2011) – Houston, TX – Houston Chronicle". Legacy.com. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  5. ↑ Hurlbert, A.; Ridley, M. (2005). "Q & A – Anya Hurlbert and Matt Ridley". Current Biology. 15 (3): R78–R79. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2005.01.019 . PMID   15694291 . Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 "Professor Anya Hurlbert". Durham University. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  7. 1 2 3 "Professor Anya Hurlbert". Newcastle University. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  8. ↑ "Why girls 'really do prefer pink'". BBC News. 21 August 2007. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  9. ↑ Hurlbert, Anya; Aston, Stacey (2017). "What #theDress reveals about the role of illumination priors in color perception and color constancy". Journal of Vision. 17 (7): 4. doi: 10.1167/17.9.4 . PMC   5812438 . PMID   28793353 . Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  10. ↑ Brainard, DH; Hulbert, A (2015). "Colour Vision: Understanding #TheDress". Current Biology. 25 (13): R551–R554. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.05.020 . PMID   26126278 . Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  11. ↑ "The Prime Minister has appointed four trustees to the Science Museum Group". Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
  12. ↑ "Advisory Board". Current Biology. Cell Press Ltd. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  13. ↑ Al-Khalili, Jim. "BBC Radio 4 – The Life Scientific, Anya Hurlbert on seeing colour". The Life Scientific. BBC. Retrieved 25 August 2020.
  14. ↑ "Ridley" . Who's Who . Vol. 2007 (online Oxford University Press  ed.). A & C Black.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  15. ↑ "Robert Hurlbert Obituary (2011) – Houston, TX – Houston Chronicle". Legacy.com. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
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