Brandeis University’s Christine Grienberger named 2025 McKnight Scholar
By David Levin
August 19, 2025
Dr. Christine Grienberger
Brandeis University Assistant Professor of Biology Christine Grienberger has been selected as a 2025 McKnight Scholar, receiving one of neuroscience’s most prestigious early-career awards. The McKnight Scholar Award, granted by the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience (MEFN), will provide Dr. Grienberger with $75,000 annually for three years to support her innovative research on brain plasticity mechanisms.
Dr. Grienberger was chosen from among 146 applicants representing the nation’s most promising young neuroscience faculty. Her research project, “Dissecting Neocortical Plasticity Mechanisms During a Sensory Associative Learning Task,” explores fundamental questions about how the brain adapts and learns through experience — work that could have significant implications for understanding learning disabilities, memory disorders and brain injury recovery.
The McKnight Scholar Award is granted to young scientists who are in the early stages of establishing their own independent laboratories and research careers and who have demonstrated a strong commitment to neuroscience. Faculty members are eligible for the award only during their first five years in a full-time faculty position, making the competition particularly intense among the field’s rising stars.
Since its introduction in 1977, the McKnight Scholar Award has funded 291 innovative investigators and spurred hundreds of breakthrough discoveries in neuroscience. Dr. Grienberger joins an elite group of just nine other scholars selected nationwide for 2025, representing diverse approaches to understanding brain function — from molecular architecture to computational modeling and clinical translation.
Dr. Grienberger’s research focuses on understanding how neural circuits in the neocortex — the brain region responsible for higher-order thinking — change and adapt during learning. By studying these plasticity mechanisms at the cellular and circuit level, her work aims to uncover fundamental principles of how the brain processes and stores new information.
The McKnight Foundation’s support will enable Dr. Grienberger to expand her research program and continue building her laboratory at Brandeis, which has a strong tradition of excellence in neuroscience research. The university’s neuroscience program benefits from state-of-the-art facilities and collaborative opportunities across multiple departments.
The McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience is an independent organization funded solely by the McKnight Foundation of Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Foundation established the Endowment Fund in 1986 to carry out the intentions of founder William L. McKnight (1887-1979), one of the early leaders of the 3M Company, who had a personal interest in memory and brain diseases and wanted part of his legacy used to help find cures.
