Anya Hurlbert

Her educational background within physics, medicine and neuroscience led to her appointment as a lecturer at Newcastle University in 1991, later becoming Professor of Visual Neuroscience. In 2003 Hurlbert was acting Head of the Division of Psychology, Brain and Behaviour (Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering) and then interim Head in 2007. She was involved in development of the new School of Psychology in the University's Faculty of Medical Sciences.[1]

In 2004 she was co-founder with Colin Ingram of the Institute of Neuroscience and its co-director until 2014. In 2012 she was involved in founding the Centre for Translational Systems Neuroscience at the University, part-funded by the Wellcome Trust. Hurlbert is now its Director as well as Dean of Advancement at Newcastle University.[1]

The focus of her research is on human visual perception, specifically how brains create and stabilise colour so that people see colours, often in different ways. This makes use of physics, psychology and neurobiology and she has developed technologies and algorithms to investigate colour constancy and perception. Her research has been applied in several very different areas including some medical conditions, artwork and exhibitions and also quality control of food.[2] Her research group has also studied differing colour preferences among young men and women.[3]

Hurlbert and colleagues participated in discussion about the science behind the 2015 social media event #the dress where people disagreed on whether it was black and royal blue, or white and gold in colour. The Newcastle scientists considered it from the aspect of individual perception of colour constancy.[4][5]

Hurlbert has been author or co-author of over 80 scientific publications including:

• Hurlbert A. (2019) Challenges to Color Constancy in a Contemporary Light. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences 30 186-193.
• Crichton S, Shrestha L, Hurlbert A, Sturm B. (2018) Use of hyperspectral imaging for the prediction of moisture content and chromaticity of raw and pretreated apple slices during convection drying. Drying Technology 36 804-816.
• Aston S, Hurlbert A. (2017) What #theDress reveals about the role of illumination priors in color perception and color constancy. Journal of Vision 17(9).
• Mackiewicz M, Finlayson GD, Hurlbert AC. (2015) Color Correction Using Root-Polynomial Regression. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing 24(5), 1460-1470.
• Brainard DH, Hurlbert AC. (2015) Colour Vision: Understanding #TheDress. Current Biology 25(13), R551-R554.
• Hurlbert A. (2012) The Networks of Thought. In: S. Aldworth, ed. Reassembling the Self: A Collection. London, UK: Cassland Books, pp. 5–8.
• Aspell JE, Tanskanen T, Hurlbert AC. (2005) Neuromagnetic correlates of visual motion coherence. European Journal of Neuroscience 22(11), 2937-2945.
• Hurlbert A. (2001) Trading faces. Nature Neuroscience 4(1), 3-5.
• Hurlbert AC, Wen, W, Poggio T. (1994) Learning color constancy. Journal of Photographic Science.

Hurlbert is a member of the Scientific Consultative Group, National Gallery, London and was a scientist trustee of the gallery from 2010 until 2018.[2]

She is a member of the Advisory Board of Current Biology.[6]

She is a member of the Advisory Board to the GestaltReVision Methusalem Programme, held by Johan Wagemans at KU Leuven in Belgium.[2]

In 2020 she was the guest in an episode of The Life Scientific on BBC Radio 4.[7]

Hurlbert was interested in science from a young age and was supported by her family. As a teenager she was interested in both mathematics and the brain.[8]

She studied at Princeton University, USA, graduating in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in Physics and subsequently a Part III Diploma in Theoretical Physics. In 1982 she was awarded a Marshall scholarship and took a master's degree in physiology at Cambridge University, UK. She was awarded a doctorate from MIT in 1989 in the area of brain and cognitive sciences and the following year gained an MD from Harvard Medical School. She then moved back to the UK and held a Wellcome Trust Vision Research Fellowship at Oxford University working with Andrew Parker.[1]

Hurlbert is married to Matt Ridley and they have two children.[9]