Biography

Sheena Josselyn is a Senior Scientist in the Neuroscience and Mental Health department at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and a Professor in the department of Psychology and Physiology and the Institute of Medical Sciences at the University of Toronto in Canada. She is a Canada Research Chair in Molecular and Cellular Cognition, an EJLB Scholar and a member of the Royal Society of Canada. Her undergraduate degrees and a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology were granted by Queen’s University in Canada. Dr. Josselyn received a PhD in Neuroscience/Psychology from the University of Toronto and conducted post-doctoral work with Mike Davis (Yale University) and Alcino Silva (UCLA). She began her own lab at SickKids in 2003.

Dr. Josselyn received several awards, including the Innovations in Psychopharmacology Award from the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CCNP) and the Effron Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). Dr. Josselyn is interested in understanding how the brain encodes, stores and uses information. Several human disorders (ranging from autism spectrum disorder to Alzheimer’s disease) may stem from disrupted information processing. Therefore, this basic knowledge is not only critical for understanding normal brain function, but also vital for the development of new treatment strategies for these disorders. her work examines the physical or functional representation of a memory in the brain (a memory trace or “engram”) is formed and used in mice.