The Social & Affective Neuroscience Society (SANS) announced that Annenberg School for Communication Professor Emily Falk has been awarded its 2020 Early Career Award.

Founded in 2008, SANS is committed to research investigating the neural basis of social and affective processes. The SANS Early Career Award recognizes an early-stage investigator — within 10 years of receiving their PhD at the time of nomination — who has made significant contributions to social and affective neuroscience through outstanding scholarship and service to the field. Winners receive a cash prize and are invited to give a short talk at the SANS annual meeting. Due to the cancellation of the 2020 conference, Dr. Falk will present her work at the 2021 virtual conference.

Dr. Falk is a Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Marketing at Penn’s Annenberg School, Director of Penn’s Communication Neuroscience Lab, and a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. She is an expert in the science of behavior change. Her research uses tools from psychology, neuroscience, and communication to examine what makes messages persuasive, why and how ideas spread, and what makes people effective communicators. Her team’s work ranges from basic science investigations of how the brain makes decisions to links between mind, body, and community, to applied questions about health, civic engagement, and social justice.