Dr. Michal Rivlin was born in Jerusalem and served in the Sar El “Volunteers for Israel” program during her military service. She graduated magna cum laude with a BS in mathematics and computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2001. She completed her PhD in the Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation at the Hebrew University in 2009. Dr. Rivlin was a postdoctoral at the University of California at Berkeley from 2009 until joining the faculty of the Department of Neurobiology at the Weizmann Institute in September 2013. She is the incumbent of the Sara Lee Schupf Family Chair.
Dr. Rivlin investigates the neuronal circuitry of the retina of the eye. The retina has a simple layered structure but it performs complex computations on the visual field. She has studied the direction-selective retinal ganglion cells that encode motion. These cells respond to motion in one “preferred” direction, but not to motion in the opposite direction. Dr. Rivlin demonstrated that a short repetitive stimulation with a moving pattern can cause direction-selective cells to reverse their directional preference. Her findings indicate that these neuronal circuits can change their function in response to sensory input. In her new lab at the Weizmann Institute, Dr. Rivlin explores whether other specialized cells in the retina can be retrained to adapt to repetitive visual stimuli. She hopes to understand the mechanisms that enable neuronal circuits to change their preferences and reveal how these changes are integrated and interpreted by higher brain structures.
Dr. Rivlin won the 2014 Gruber Award and a Revson Award in 2009 from the National Postdoctoral Program for Advancing Women in Science established by the Weizmann Institute. She won a Human Frontier Science Program Long-Term Fellowship in 2010, and an Edmond and Lily Safra Fellowship in Brain Science in 2009. Her honors also include Dean’s Awards for outstanding achievement and a Rector’s PhD scholarship for excellence from Hebrew University, a Katzir student travel fellowship, a Nitza Ilan prize for outstanding students in electrophysiology, and a National Institute for Psychobiology in Israel travel award.
Dr. Rivlin is married to Yedidya and has four children: David, Naomi, Miriam, and Itai.