John E. Lisman (1944 – October 20, 2017) was the Zalman Abraham Kekst Chair in Neuroscience at the Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. He was Professor of Biology, noted for his research on amplification and switching in signal transduction, memory, and neurological diseases such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. For his research, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2013.
Education Lisman graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1966. He completed graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a postdoctoral fellowship with Nobel laureate George Wald at Harvard University.
John E. Lisman Memorial Lecture in Vision Science The John E. Lisman '66 Memorial Lecture in Vision Science is an annual award and lecture given by a leading international scholar in vision research who is selected by a committee at Brandeis University. Scholars are selected based on their extraordinary contributions to vision research and receive a $5000 prize. The scholar visits Brandeis for 1–2 days to meet faculty, students, and postdoctoral fellows, and often participates in teaching an ongoing Brandeis course.
The Lisman award is endowed by a gift from the Lifelong Vision Foundation (previously: Midwest Cornea Research Foundation), a public charity established to promote and disseminate vision research that is aimed at preserving and restoring sight. The award was initially established by Brandeis alumni Jay Pepose (BS 1975) and Susan Feigenbaum (BS 1974), and, prior to 2018, was named the Jay Pepose ’75 Award in Vision Sciences. In 2018, the award was renamed to honor the memory of John E. Lisman (1944-2017), a Brandeis alumnus (BS 1966) and faculty member from 1974 until his death in 2017. +Date of LectureAwardeeAffiliationTitle or Topic of LectureFebruary 8, 2010Jay NeitzUniversity of WashingtonGene therapy for red-green color blindness in adult primatesFebruary 9, 2010Maureen NeitzUniversity of WashingtonRetinal Activity Patterns and the Cause and Prevention of NearsightednessMarch 14, 2011Peter SchillerMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyParallel Information Processing Channels Created in the RetinaMarch 12, 2012Michael StrykerUniversity of California, San FranciscoRewiring the Brain: Mechanisms of Competition and Recovery of Function in the Mammalian CortexMarch 13, 2013Gordon FainUniversity of California, Los AngelesThe G-protein Cascade of PhotoreceptorsMarch 12, 2014Richard MaslandHarvard Medical SchoolThe neuronal organization of the retina: answers and problemsMay 18, 2015William NewsomeStanford University School of MedicineA New Look at Gating: Selective Integration of Sensory Signals through Network DynamicsApril 12, 2016David WilliamsUniversity of RochesterSeeing through the retinaMarch 13, 2017Frank WerblinUniversity of California at BerkeleyThe Evolution of Retinal ResearchApril 10, 2018David FitzpatrickMax Planck Florida InstituteFunctional synaptic architecture in primary visual cortexApril 9, 2019Constance CepkoHarvard Medical SchoolThe Development of the Vertebrate Retina and Nanobodies as Regulators of Intracellular ActivitiesNovember 15, 2021Doris TsaoCalifornia Institute of TechnologyThe macaque face patch system: a neural rosetta stone (2020 winner, lecture postponed due to COVID-19)April 11, 2022John E. DowlingHarvard Medical SchoolTwists and Turns: Vitamin A, Vision and Memory (2021 winner, lecture postponed due to COVID-19)May 2, 2022R. Clay ReidAllen InstituteLarge-Scale Microscopy for Brain Mapping: Electron and Light Microscopic Approaches to ConnectomicsApril 17, 2023Rachel O. WongUniversity of WashingtonWiring specificity and plasticity of the vertebrate retinaApril 1, 2024Jonathan C. HortonUCSFOcular dominance columns and strabismusMarch 3, 2025Christine A. CurcioUniversity of Alabama, BirminghamHow laboratory microscopy became clinical imaging of the human retinaMarch 17, 2026Marla B. FellerUniversity of California, BerkeleyRiding Retinal Waves Through the Developing Visual SystemOctober 27, 2026J. Anthony MovshonNew York UniversityTBA
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