Support Psychology & Neuroscience

The Neuroscience Institute Prize was established in 1998 by donations from members of the Neuroscience Institute, Dalhousie University. Upon receiving a generous gift from Dr. David and Mrs. Ruth Hubel, the Neuroscience Institute changed the name of the prize in honour of the Hubels. The prize is awarded to a fourth year Neuroscience Honours student who shows outstanding potential as a researcher in Neuroscience.

Students entering a graduate program in Psychology are eligible to receive this prize. It is awarded to students who have, in the judgement of the Graduate Program Committee, demonstrated a potential to make significant scientific contributions. Offers of the Hebb Prize may accompany a student's acceptance letter. The prize was established in 1988, and one or two have been awarded each year since 1989. The prize is paid on top of whatever other scholarship and teaching assistantships the winner may already hold. Most recently this prize was valued at $1,000. Students do not need to apply for this prize.

The D.O. Hebb Memorial Lecture honours the memory of Donald Olding Hebb, who graduated from Dalhousie University with his BA in 1925 and was Professor Emeritus in the Psychology Department at Dalhousie University from 1977 to 1985.
Donald Hebb was born in Chester, NS, in 1904. After graduating from Dalhousie, he was a teacher before entering graduate school at McGill University, where he received his MA in Psychology. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1936 from Harvard University under the supervision of Karl Lashley. He worked with neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield at the Montreal Neurological Institute, and then studied emotional behaviour in monkeys at the Yerkes Primate Laboratory, becoming a professor of psychology at McGill in 1947, where he remained until 1977.
As Chairman of the Psychology Department at McGill, he was instrumental in forging a department with strong biological roots that was considered among the very best in North America. Hebb’s students have had a substantial impact on psychology and many Psychology Departments in Canada and the USA have had one of Hebb’s students on their faculty. In 1949, Hebb published his influential book entitled The Organization of Behavior [reprinted 2002], in which he outlined his theories of the neurophysiological bases of behaviour (see Brown & Milner 2003). The D.O. Hebb Memorial Lecture honours the contributions made by D.O. Hebb in this book and his many other scientific publications.

A bequest from the Estate of Dr. Lilyan E. White established an endowment to fund a prize to an undergraduate student in Psychology and in Neuroscience. The Department assigns prizes for use in recognizing the best performance of a student in second year in each program.

A fund has been established to provide for one or more annual prizes to students who have achieved the highest performance in the introductory Psychology course(s) and who are undertaking a Major or Honours degree in Psychology or Neuroscience.

A fund has been established to provide a prize to a fourth year Honours student who shows outstanding potential as a scientist practitioner in Clinical Psychology.

This Beatrice Award will be awarded annually to the graduate student in the Clinical Psychology PhD Program who is deemed to have been the “best citizen” and the most positively helpful or supportive to fellow students (graduate or undergraduate) during their time in the Program. The award will be decided on by a committee of students and others chosen and headed by the Director of Clinical Training (DCT). The award is to honour the outstanding contributions of Beatrice Hanisch to the Clinical Psychology PhD Program since its inception in 1989.