Baltimore Scientist Receives Presidential Award for His Groundbreaking Early Research

R. Jacob Vogelstein, who recently was named a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by Former President Barack Obama, stands outside his office at Camden Partners in Baltimore, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017. (Photo by Steve Ruark)

Baltimore native Dr. R. Jacob Vogelstein recently was named a recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers by then-President Barack Obama. The honor is the highest bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

A Chizuk Amuno congregant, Vogelstein, 38, will receive the award at the White House at a future date. No doubt joining him will be his wife, Rachel, and their two children.

Vogelstein, who grew up in Pikesville and attended the Park School of Baltimore, earned his undergraduate degree in neuro-engineering from Brown University and a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He is the son of acclaimed cancer genetics pioneer Dr. Bert Vogelstein and Jewish early childhood educator Ilene Vogelstein.

He was nominated for his cumulative research contributions up to 2014, including his work through the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a government agency. Vogelstein’s research concentrates on the area of applied neuroscience.

The presidential award honors Vogelstein’s early research work, including a project called MICrONS, or Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks.

“Most of my research focused on technology for able-bodied, highly performing individuals — not on rehabilitation for restoration of function,” he said. “It was creating a technique that taps into the brain or explores something we know about the brain to help you do your job faster and better.”

While he is still involved in the MICrONS project in an advisory capacity, Vogelstein now serves full-time as a managing partner in the Baltimore-based Camden Partners Holdings LLC.

David Oros, chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at Camden and Vogelstein’s business partner for more than a decade, said of him, “He is exceptional in evaluating a wide range of new technologies and using his understanding and creativity to make even further advancements.”

At Camden Partners, Vogelstein and Oros collaborate on a seed-stage venture capital strategy. They began working together using algorithms from Vogelstein’s graduate school training to trade futures contracts and started looking for ways to enhance the ecosystem for other technology companies in Maryland. At Camden, they focus primarily in the biomedical technology realm.

Being among the group of recent presidential awardees was a humbling experience, Vogelstein said.

“To be recognized of anything, you hope it can inspire more people to conduct the kind of research that I’ve spent my early career in,” he said. “Applied neuroscience is still a very fertile field. There’s a lot of opportunity there.”

Jason Matheny, director of IARPA, called Vogelstein “an outstanding scientist who is leading breakthroughs in our understanding of computation in the brain. He leads IARPA’s MICrONS program, one of the most ambitious research efforts within the U.S. government and a key part of the White House BRAIN [Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies] Initiative.”

Vogelstein said he views the award as not only for his work but for all of those with whom he collaborated. He said he hopes to be laying the groundwork for future scientists.

“The future is incredibly bright in applied neurosciences,” he said. “We’re currently at a point where the convergence of tools and technology [are available] to really obtain a deep understanding of how the brain functions and exploit that understanding to create better tools and technology for humans to use.”

Linda L. Esterson is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.

Photo by Steve Ruark

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