Prof Hurlbert’s background is in physics, medicine and neuroscience, with her higher education and early career research experience taking place on both sides of the Atlantic. She graduated from Princeton University in 1980 with a BA in Physics, followed in 1981 by a Part III Diploma in Theoretical Physics and in 1982 an MA in Physiology from Cambridge University, where she held a Marshall Scholarship. In 1989, Prof Hurlbert received a PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT, where she studied with Tomaso Poggio and Peter Schiller, and in 1990, an MD from Harvard Medical School. Prof Hurlbert then held a Vision Research Fellowship at Oxford University in Andrew Parker’s lab, before joining Physiological Sciences in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University in 1991 as a lecturer.

Having moved from Physiological Sciences to Psychology, she became acting Head of the Division of Psychology, Brain and Behaviour (Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering) in 2003, and interim Head in 2007, helping to create the new School of Psychology in the Faculty of Medical Sciences.   In 2004, Prof Hurlbert co-founded the Institute of Neuroscience with the late Professor Colin Ingram, and was co-Director of the Institute until 2014. In 2012, we established the Centre for Translational Systems Neuroscience with a Capital Award from the Wellcome Trust.