Photo by Joanne Rathe, Boston Globe
Bevil Conway: Biography
Born: Harare, Zimbabwe.
Live: Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Occupation: Artist and Neuroscientist
Knafel Assistant Professor, Program in Neuroscience, Wellesley College
Research Associate, McLean Hospital
Visiting Scientist, Harvard Medical School
Education: BSc (1995) McGill University, MMSc Harvard Medical School (1998), PhD Harvard University (2001), Harvard Junior Fellow (2003-2007).
Prizes/Awards/Grants/Research Support
Whitehall Foundation Grant (2008-2011)
Humboldt Research Fellowship (2005-2007)
Junior Fellowship in the Harvard Society of Fellows (2003-2006)
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada PGSB Award (1996-1999)
Markey Scholarship (1997-98, Harvard Medical School)
Muriel Roscoe Prize for the top graduate in Biological Sciences (1995, McGill)
Hewlett Packard Prize for the top science or engineering student (1992, McGill)
Biosketch: At McGill I studied painting with Gentile Tondino, and in 2004 I studied printmaking with the artist Heddi Siebel. During my summers I worked with Joanne Matsubara and Jamie Boyd at the University of British Columbia, examining the anatomical basis for parallel processing streams in cat visual cortex. Following graduation I took a position to teach Biology, English Literature and Fine Art(A Level) at Peterhouse Secondary School in Marondera, Zimbabwe. During my stay back in Zimbabwe I became more seriously interested in Visual Neuroscience as a rigorous way to understand art-making, and I accepted a place in the Neuroscience program at Harvard Medical School. Following one semester of the PhD program, I took a leave of absence to do the first two years of medical school as a Markey Scholar at Harvard Medical School, for which I received a Master's of Medical Sciences (1998). I then went back to finish my PhD in Neurobiology (2001), working on the neural mechanisms of color and motion in primary visual cortex with Margaret Livingstone. During graduate school I taught Neurobiology for John Dowling's core Neurobiology course at Harvard College, helped David Hubel run his freshman seminar, maintained an active painting studio, and taught painting in the Visual and Environmental Studies Department at Harvard College. In 2002 I again went abroad, this time to Nepal to help start a new Western-style medical school -- the Kathmandu University Medical School (KUMS) -- where I was the Director of Education for Physiology and Pathophysiology.
In 2003 I was elected a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows to develop my interests in Visual Art and Visual Neuroscience. My research occasionally strikes a popular nerve (the New York Times and the Boston Globe). At Wellesley, I developed the course Vision and Art: Physics, Physiology, Perception and Practice (Neur320), which is taught once per year.
My laboratory continues to investigate the neural basis for color and motion perception using single unit electrophysiology and functional magnetic resonance imaging, along with human psychophysics and computational approaches. I have active collaborations with Margaret Livingstone, David Hubel and Doris Tsao.
My artwork has been published in several books including Vision and Art (Abrams, 2002) and Brain and Visual Perception (Oxford University Press, 2004), and has been used by BOSE Wave Radio in advertising. It is held in several private collections in Europe, Africa and North America and is in the public collection of the Fogg Museum. I am currently working on a series of drawings and etchings exploring mark-making and movement, inspired by Mark Morris's Dancers.Watch the interview that I and Eve Marder conducted with Mark Morris at the Society for Neurosciences Annual meeting in Washington DC.
I am a non-resident tutor in Art, Medicine and Neurobiology at Leverett House, Harvard College.
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Juried Exhibitions
Dichotomy, Ferry Biulding Art Gallery, West Vancouver, BC (August 1992)
Harmony Arts Festival, Group Show, West Vancouver, BC (Summers, 1990-5)
Winter Group Show, McGill U. (December 1994)
A Watercolor Portrait, Government of Canada Fine Art Gallery, West Vancouver, BC (July 1995)
Networks, Adams House, Harvard College (February, 2003)
Beautiful Rebellion, Adams House, Harvard College (March, 2003)
Continuing Education Group Show, Massachusetts College of Art (December 2003)
Awards and Honors
Humboldt Research Fellowship, University of Bremen, Germany (2005-7)
Junior Fellowship, Harvard Society of Fellows (2003-7)
Kathmandu University Medical School, Best Teach Award (2002)
Derek Bok Teaching Award, Harvard University (1999)
NSERC Research Award (1993 and 1996-1999)
Markey Scholarship, Harvard Medical School (1997-8)
Muriel Rosco Prize, McGill U (1995)
Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Award (1994)
Hewlett-Packard Prize, McGill U (1993)
McConnell Entrance Scholarship, McGill U (1992)
Wilson Memorial Scholarship, West Vancouver, BC (1992)
