Richard N. Aslin, the William R. Kenan Professor of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, has been named president-elect of the International Society on Infant Studies, a not-for-profit professional organization devoted to the promotion of research on the development of infants. Aslin is finishing a five-year term as editor of the Society's journal.
"I am very pleased to be elected president of the premier professional society in my field," says Aslin. "Our goal for the future is to continue to meet the professional needs of our members, to promote excellence in studies of infancy, and to disseminate solid information to the public."
Aslin works to understand how normal development progresses in human infants and young children who range in age from one month to two years. His research attempts to reveal how infants make sense of the sights and sounds of the world around them, how they learn new patterns in visual scenes and streams of speech, and what brain mechanisms enable these developments to unfold.
Aslin is director of the new Rochester Center for Brain Imaging, which uses one of the world's most powerful magnetic resonance imaging systems to plumb the physiology of the brain. Among his many honors, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1988, received the University's Robert and Pamela Goergen Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Learning in 2001, and was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006. He also has held the posts of dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and vice provost and dean of the College.
Before joining the Rochester faculty, Aslin was a faculty member at Indiana University at Bloomington, taught at the University of Minnesota, and was a visiting scientist at the University of Washington's Regional Primate Research Center.
He holds a bachelor's degree from Michigan State University and a doctorate in child psychology from the University of Minnesota.