Mackenzie Mathis, the EPFL neuroscientist “mouse whisperer”, crowned with several prizes

Published on November 6, 2024 at 3:08 p.m. / Modified on November 6, 2024 at 3:08 p.m.

How do we move our body? What happens in the neural networks of our brain when we decide to go from point A to point B? These questions, much more complex than they seem, Mackenzie Mathis, professor of integrative neuroscience at EPFL, was already asking herself in her youth, as a teenager in California, surrounded by her pets, horses and dogs, including she carefully observes the behavior.

The young girl at the time, an equestrian athlete, did not aspire to do fundamental research but was rather attracted to medicine, and she had no idea that, a few years later, she would become a brilliant scientist. She has just been rewarded with several prizes, including the Latsis which will be awarded to her in Bern on November 7, for her research on the neural circuits involved in movement. But also the Robert Bing, which she shares with her husband Alexander Mathis, also a neuroscience researcher, for the development of tools combining behavioral sciences and machine learning.

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