Draft:Lisa Genzel

Lisa Katharina Ellinor Genzel (born 1983) is a neurobiologist specializing in memory research and the role of sleep in memory processes like consolidation, prioritization, integration, and deletion. She is the principal investigator at the "Networks of Memory and Sleep" lab, part of the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior at Radboud University Nijmegen. Her research focuses on the mechanisms of sleep and memory, employing rodent and human models. She uses a variety of techniques including electrophysiology and molecular biology to monitor activity-dependent immediate early genes, as well as engram tagging. In human studies, she utilizes functional MRI and sleep-EEG to further understand these processes.

Education, career and research
From 2003 to 2010, Lisa Genzel engaged in medical studies at Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Germany. During this time, she took part in several medical internships: the Psychiatric Department in Jimma, Ethiopia, Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA, the Pediatric Department at Prince of Wales Hospital in Hong Kong, China, and Neurology Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, also in Boston. From 2006 to 2010, she pursued an MD thesis on sleep-related memory consolidation, conducted jointly at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry and Ludwig Maximilian University. In 2011, Genzel was conferred a doctorate with Magna Cum Laude distinction, coinciding with her graduation from medical school.

Lisa Genzel continued her academic career in 2011 as a Post-doctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich, Germany, collaborating with A. Steiger. During this period, she investigated the effects of sleep on complex motor sequence learning, demonstrating that while such learning benefits from sleep, skill transfer does not depend on it. In 2012, she continued her post-doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh, UK, collaborating with R.G.M. Morris at the Centre for Cognitive and Neural Systems. Here, she focused on how sleep affects memory formation, especially in individuals with depression and schizophrenia. Her research highlighted that both groups have similar issues with brain connections that impact memory when sleeping. She also studied how different sleep phases play a role in memory strength, suggesting that lighter sleep phases help enhance memories, while deeper sleep phases help stabilize them by adjusting brain connections. From 2014 to 2019, Genzel received the Branco Weiss - Society in Science Fellowship, which she did at the University of Edinburgh and Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. During this period, from 2017 to 2019, she also served as an Excellence Fellow at Radboudumc. Genzel joined Radboud University as an Assistant Professor of Neuroinformatics in 2017, achieved tenure in 2020, and advanced to Associate Professor in 2021.

Public engagement
In 2012, Genzel co-founded and coordinated the MindYerBrain initiative on Facebook and Twitter. In 2019, she served as a judge for the Dutch Brainbee, contributing to the cultivation of scientific interest among young minds. Transitioning into digital platforms, Genzel produced a video for the University of the Netherlands in 2021, expanding her reach to a broader audience with accessible scientific content. In 2022, she was the recipient of the Radboud Science Award, and gave an interview to Vox about her research and the ways in which she approaches animal studies in a humane way.

From 2022 to 2023, she focused on educational outreach, developing an elementary school teaching module. Her commitment to community engagement continued with a Radboud Reflects Talk in a local cinema in 2022, providing an interactive platform for community discourse. Since 2020, Genzel has actively participated in various outreach activities, including online videos, open days at both TNU and Radboud University, with a particular emphasis on the importance of animal research.

Teaching
Since 2009, Lisa Genzel has contributed to academic mentorship and curriculum development across several institutions: Radboud University, the Donders Institute, LMU Munich, and the University of Edinburgh. Genzel helped develop a new medical curriculum, "M23 – OrganiCum", at LMU Munich and has been involved in faculty development initiatives at Jimma University in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. In recognition of her teaching contributions, she received the teaching award from the Biology Study Association BeeVee at Radboud University in 2022.

Initiative in the scientific community
In 2023, she began a three-year term as Chair of the FENS-Kavli Network of Excellence, a group of 30 prominent early to mid-career European neuroscientists committed to enhancing neuroscience through scientific collaboration, supporting emerging scientists, and promoting dialogue between the scientific community, policymakers, and the public.

Genzel's expertise in sleep and memory consolidation has earned her recognition at international conferences. She has presented at the World Sleep Conference in Kyoto (October 2011), the FENS Conference in Copenhagen (July 2016), the ICOM 6 conference in Budapest, and the British Neuroscience Association conference in Dublin (April 2019). Additionally, she spoke at the Hippocampus meeting in Taormina (June 2019) and at a virtual FENS-Satellite Symposium hosted by the British Sleep Research Society (July 2020). More recent presentations include the "11 min of Sleep" conference in Pisa (May 2022) and the BNA conference in Brighton (April 2023). Lisa Genzel has also been a speaker at various research institutions. Her engagements include presentations to the Penny Lewis research group in Manchester (January 2014), the MPI-Human Development Graduate School in Berlin (July 2018), and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (February 2023). Furthermore, she participated in the Berlin/Bochum Memory Alliance (March 2023).

Awards and grants

 * 2001 Werner Heisenberg Medal (Werner Heisenberg Gymnasium Garching/GE)
 * 2009 Acceptance into the German National Merit Foundation
 * 2015 Early Career Scientist Award of the German Sleep Research Foundation
 * 2021 Donders Cube for extraordinary efforts in outreach on animal research
 * 2022 Radboud Science Award
 * 2023 FENS-Kavli Excellence Fellow
 * 2023 ERC Consolidator grant
 * 2017 VIDI grant NWO
 * 2014 Society in Science – Branco Weiss Fellowship