David C. Van Essen

David C. Van Essen (born September 14, 1945) is an American neuroscientist specializing in neurobiology and studies the structure, function, development, connectivity and evolution of the cerebral cortex of humans and nonhuman relatives. After over two decades of teaching at the Washington University School of Medicine, he currently serves as an Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience and maintains an active laboratory. Van Essen has held numerous positions, including Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroscience, secretary of the Society for Neuroscience, and the president of the Society for Neuroscience from 2006 to 2007. Additionally, Van Essen has received numerous awards for his efforts in education and science, including the Krieg Cortical Discoverer Award from the Cajal Club in 2002, the Peter Raven Lifetime Achievement Award from St. Louis Academy of Science in 2007, and the Second Century Award in 2015 and the Distinguished Educator Award in 2017, both from Washington University School of Medicine.

A key contributor to the understanding of the primate visual system, he created one of the most well-known maps of the visual pathway in the primate cortex with Dr. Daniel J. Felleman, based on anatomical tracing. This study laid the groundwork for understanding cortical systems in general as hierarchical circuits.

Education Van Essen received his undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1967 from California Institute of Technology. Working on the leech nervous system with John Graham Nicholls, he received his doctoral degree in Neurobiology in 1971 from Harvard University and continued as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University under David H. Hubel and Torsten Wiesel studying the visual cortex of cats. This experience led Van Essen to study visual systems. Van Essen continued to pursue additional postdoctoral work at the University of Oslo and at University College London where he studied the visual cortex of monkeys and developed a "pencil and tracing paper" method to make 2D cortical flat maps. With the use of neuroanatomical data collected through collaboration by Washington University and other private institutions, Van Essen's research has enhanced the development and utilization of different methods used in computerized brain mapping and neuroinformatics to enhance data findings and analysis. While Van Essen's cortical cartography methods began with manually-generated maps, this area of research has developed into the novel usage of software tools for brain visualization.

David Van Essen also led the Human Connectome Project (HCP) as the Principal Investigator together with Co-Principal Investigator Kamil Ugurbil; HCP is a 5-year project designed to map the human brain circuitry. While the committee existed only five years, the subfield continues to grow in recognition and importance. Van Essen has contributed to mapping cortical convolutions; first by hand, then computerizing the process leading to the development of computerized cortical cartography.

Selected publications David Van Essen's most cited publications are referenced below: