Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour and Cognitive Science

Societe Canadienne des Sciences du Cerveau, du Comportement et de la Cognition
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The Donald O. Hebb Distinguished Contribution Award

This award shall be made to an individual who, in the opinion of the selection committee, has made a significant contribution to the study of brain, behaviour, and cognitive science. The committee shall be composed of the five immediate past presidents of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science (BBCS), and shall be chaired by the least recent past president.

In making its selection the committee will consider the following three criteria:
  1. An individual whose research has been sustained and meritorious and has enhanced the knowledge base of brain, behaviour, and cognition,
  2. An individual whose training of students, postdoctoral fellows and colleagues has had a significant impact on brain, behaviour, and cognitive science, and
  3. An individual whose influence has been exerted through leadership as a theorist or spokesperson for the discipline.

Normally, the awardee shall have conducted a significant proportion of his/her research training or disciplinary work within Canada. The awardee is invited to give the Donald O. Hebb Distinguished Contribution address at the annual BBCS meeting of that year.


The 2011 Donald O. Hebb Award
from the
Canadian Society for Brain,
Behaviour and Cognitive Sciences

Presented to

Dr. Ellen Bialystok, Ph.D.
 

 Dr. Ellen Bialystok

Dr. Bialystok’s work in language learning, bilingualism, literacy, education and aging is recognized by a Killam Research Fellowship, her appointment as Distinguished Research Professor at York University, her election to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada, and a York University President’s Research Award of Merit.

Dr. Bialystok is a true intellectual with broad interests and an ability to investigate large issues using tight experiments. She has written four books and she has edited three further volumes; of these, her single- authored books ‘Language processing in bilingual children’ (1991) and ‘Bilingualism in development’ (2001) have had a major influence in the fields of psycholinguistics and cognitive development. Her list of refereed journal articles is in excess of 100 and she has written 50 book chapters. Dr. Bialystok’s recent work examining the consequences of bilingualism for other cognitive functions such as attentional control, executive functions and lexical access has been extremely well received and expands our understanding of cognition in general.

Dr. Bialystok's research on children led to the discovery of a processing advantage associated with bilingualism—bilingual children can more efficiently inhibit irrelevant stimuli and segregate competing streams of information—and she is now exploring whether this bilingual advantage extends into adulthood and old age, whether indeed it is a protective factor to counteract age-related cognitive decline. Articles reporting these results have appeared in Psychology and Aging (2004) and Neuropsychologia (2007). In addition, Dr. Bialystok is examining the neural correlates of this bilingual advantage; one study has been completed using MEG technology (NeuroCase, 2005) and others are now underway using fMRI and ERP. Thus her research work, while still mainly focusing on cognitive development, is increasingly concerned with cognitive processes, and with the underlying cognitive neuroscience.

Dr. Bialystok is a scientist of the highest order, a role model to her students and peers alike.


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Last revised: 02/20/2009