Jonathon Stevens "Jon Driver" (4 July 1962 – 28 November 2011) was a

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...

and

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, Biological neural network, n ...

. He was a leading figure in the study of perception, selective attention and

multisensory integration Multisensory integration, also known as multimodal integration, is the study of how information from the different sensory modalities (such as sight, sound, touch, smell, self-motion, and taste) may be integrated by the nervous system. A coherent r ...

in the normal and damaged human brain.

Education

Driver was born in

Halifax, West Yorkshire Halifax () is a minster and market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. It is the commercial, cultural and administrative centre of the borough, and the headquarters of Calderdale Council. In the 15th cen ...

, on 4 July 1962. He studied at

The Queen's College, Oxford The Queen's College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford, England. The college was founded in 1341 by Robert de Eglesfield in honour of Philippa of Hainault. It is distinguished by its pred ...

and received a First Class degree in

Experimental Psychology Experimental psychology refers to work done by those who apply experimental methods to psychological study and the underlying processes. Experimental psychologists employ human participants and animal subjects to study a great many topics, in ...

in 1984. He then stayed on at Oxford for his DPhil (awarded in 1988), under the supervision of Alan Allport and Peter McLeod.Jon Driver CV

Career

Following postdoctoral work in the US with Michael Posner at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

, Driver took up a lectureship in the Department of Experimental Psychology at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

in 1990. In 1996 he was appointed to a professorship at

Birkbeck College Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a public university, public research university, located in Bloomsbury, London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal Universit ...

, and in 1998 he became Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

(UCL). From 2004 - 2009 he was Director of the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, an interdisciplinary research centre that studies mental processes in the human brain. From 2009 Driver held a Royal Society Anniversary Research Professorship, which allowed him to concentrate on research. He was also a principal investigator at the

Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging The 'Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging'' at University College London is a world-leading interdisciplinary centre for neuroimaging research based in London, United Kingdom. Researchers at the Centre use expertise to investigate how the hum ...

at UCL.

Honours

In 2005 Driver was elected as a Fellow of the

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to adv ...

; in 2006 as a member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

, the Academy of Europe; and in 2008 as a Fellow of the

British Academy The British Academy is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the same year. It is now a fellowship of more than 1,000 leading scholars span ...

. Driver received many prestigious awards during his career, including the Spearman Medal of the

British Psychological Society The British Psychological Society (BPS) is a representative body for psychologists and psychology in the United Kingdom. History It was founded on 24 October 1901 at University College London (UCL) as ''The Psychological Society'', the organ ...

, the

Experimental Psychology Society The Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) is an academic society which facilitates research into experimental psychology and communication between experimental psychologists. It is based in the United Kingdom. The society was originally formed a ...

(EPS) Prize, and the EPS Mid-Career Award. He was also awarded a Royal Society-

Leverhulme Trust The Leverhulme Trust () is a large national grant-making organisation in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1925 under the will of the 1st Viscount Leverhulme (1851–1925), with the instruction that its resources should be used to suppo ...

Senior Research Fellowship and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award. From 2009, Driver held a Royal Society Anniversary Research Professorship (one of only six scientists selected across all disciplines).

Research

Driver's research focused on selective attention, spatial cognition and

(the interplay between our different senses) in the healthy and damaged human brain (e.g. in

hemispatial neglect Hemispatial neglect is a neuropsychological condition in which, after damage to one hemisphere of the brain (e.g. after a stroke), a deficit in attention and awareness towards the side of space opposite brain damage (contralesional space) is obser ...

). He used an integrative methodological approach combining psychophysical, neuropsychological,

neuroimaging Neuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Incre ...

and TMS, and was one of the first to perform concurrent TMS-fMRI to study how dynamic interactions between brain regions can support cognitive functions. His work revealed differential influences on face processing from attention and emotion in the human brain, with the amygdala response to threat-related expressions unaffected by a manipulation of attention that strongly modulates the response to faces in fusiform gyri. He also probed the neural mechanisms of crossmodal links in attention - such as sudden touch on one hand improving vision near that hand - showing that these can be mediated by back-projections from multimodal parietal areas to unimodal visual cortex. His research was funded by the Medical Research Council, the

Wellcome Trust The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of one of the predecessors of Glaxo ...

, the

Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation, is a non-departmental public body (NDPB), and is the largest UK public funder of non-medical bioscience. It predominantly funds scientific rese ...

, the

Economic and Social Research Council The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides fundi ...

, the

James S. McDonnell Foundation The James S. McDonnell Foundation was founded in 1950 by aerospace pioneer James S. McDonnell. It was established to "improve the quality of life," and does so by contributing to the generation of new knowledge through its support of research and ...

, and

The Stroke Association The Stroke Association is a charity in the United Kingdom. It works to prevent stroke, and to support everyone touched by stroke, fund research, and campaign for the rights of stroke survivors of all ages. History The Stroke Association was f ...

. Driver authored over 200 scientific publications, and his work has been cited over 50,000 times. He played an instrumental role as a member of the team leading UCL's successful bid for th
Sainsbury-Wellcome Centre

Personal life

Driver was brought up in Hull and attended

Hymers College Hymers College is a co-educational independent day school in Kingston upon Hull, located on the site of the old Botanical Gardens. It is one of the leading schools in the East Riding of Yorkshire and a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistres ...

, where he played cello in the school orchestra and also played bass guitar in a number of bands in Hull. From his teens onwards he was a devoted and expert fly fisherman, which he pursued in the chalk streams of southern England. He took his own life in London on 28 November 2011, aged 49, ten months after shattering his knee in a motorcycle accident which left him in debilitating chronic pain. He is survived by his wife, Nilli Lavie, and their two sons.

Jon Driver Prize

To honour the memory of Jon Driver, a group of friends and colleagues established th
Jon Driver Prize
Reflecting Jon Driver’s commitment to mentorship and his seminal contribution to promoting neuroscience at UCL, the prize is awarded competitively every year to recognise high-quality research of students completing their PhD in the field of neuroscience at UCL.

Selected publications

* * * * *. * * *

References

External links

Obituary (UCL)

Obituary (The Times)

Obituary (Trends in Cognitive Sciences)

Personal tributes
ref> {{DEFAULTSORT:Driver, Jon Alumni of The Queen's College, Oxford Members of Academia Europaea Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) Fellows of the British Academy Academics of University College London British neuroscientists Wellcome Trust People from Halifax, West Yorkshire 1962 births 2011 deaths