Rita G. Rudel-Lucy G. Moses Lecture

Lecture History

This lecture was established by one of New York City’s great benefactors, Lucy G. Moses, to honor the memory of Dr. Rita G. Rudel. Dr. Rudel suffered an untimely death on May 21, 1984 at the height of her academic career. At the time, she was Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and Director of the Neuropsychology Unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Rudel had gained wide recognition for her neuropsychological investigations of neurologically impaired and developmentally learningdisabled children and was an editor of the Journal of Learning Disabilities.

Dr. Rudel received her bachelor’s degree from City College and her master’s degree from New York University. She became a member of the Department of Psychology at MIT in 1961. Over the next decade, a productive collaboration emerged between Dr. Rudel and her mentor, Professor Hans Teuber. Together they investigated many aspects of cognitive function in normal and brain-injured children.

Dr. Rudel returned to NYC in 1972 as a member of Columbia’s Department of Neurology. She later also joined the Department of Psychiatry. She continued her professional collaboration with Dr. Teuber in Boston even as she joined forces with Dr. Martha B. Denckla in New York. A stream of important neuropsychological studies emerged. Particularly novel aspects were Dr. Rudel’s emphasis, first, on providing quantitative measures of children with neurological disabilities and, second, developing new management strategies to help them cope with learning disabilities and hyperactivity. For their innovative work, Drs. Rudel and Denckla shared Columbia’s 1975 Lucy G. Moses Prize for Research in Clinical Neurology.

2024 Lecture Information:

Date: May 8, 2024
Time: 5-6 p.m.
Location: Neurological Institute Alumni Auditorium

Music, Language, and the Developing Brain

Aniruddh D. Patel, PhD

Professor of Psychology, Tufts University

Aniruddh D. Patel, PhD

Aniruddh D. Patel, PhD

Aniruddh (Ani) Patel is a Professor of Psychology at Tufts University, where he studies the cognitive, neural, and evolutionary foundations of musicality. His 2008 book Music, Language, and the Brain (Oxford Univ. Press) won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award, and his 2015 lecture series for The Great Courses, titled Music and the Brain, has reached a wide audience. Renée Fleming invited him to contribute a chapter on musicality, evolution, and animal responses to music to her 2024 book Music and the Mind: Harnessing The Arts for Health and Wellness. Patel has served as President of the Society for Music Perception and Cognition, and is a member of the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program in the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). He earned his PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, working with Edward O. Wilson and Evan Balaban. Prior to joining Tufts he worked at The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, CA, a research institute led by the Nobel Laureate Gerald M. Edelman. Patel’s research has been supported by fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and the Guggenheim Foundation.


For further information, contact thb2108@cumc.columbia.edu.

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