Name Peter Lennie | ||
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Peter Lennie is an American neuroscientist. He succeeded Ralph Kuncl as the ninth provost of the University of Rochester on July 1, 2012, and served until June 30, 2016. He is the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences and Engineering and a professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences.
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Education
Lennie received his bachelor of science degree in psychology from the University of Hull, England, in 1969. He earned his PhD in experimental psychology from the University of Cambridge, England, in 1972.
Career
From 1999 through 2006 Lennie was the dean for science at New York University and a professor in its Center for Neural Science. He was responsible for the development of programs and departments in the natural sciences as well as interdisciplinary and interschool science initiatives, including with the New York University Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Education, and the Tisch School of the Arts.
Lennie joined the University of Rochester in 1982 as an associate professor of psychology and visual science. He became a professor in 1984, later serving as director of the Center for Visual Science. In 1995, he became the founding chair of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. In 2006, after returning to the University of Rochester from NYU, he was named faculty Dean
Neuroscience
Lennie provided fundamental insights into the neural machinery of vision, especially how the eye communicates with the brain. His research "sits at the interface between visual perception and visual physiology". He concentrated particularly on how the successive stages of the visual pathway from the eye and the brain’s cortex encode and represent information about the form and color of objects.