Professor Lesley Rogers has made outstanding contributions to understanding brain development and behaviour. She discovered lateralization in the chick forebrain, when lateralization was still believed to be a unique feature of the human brain. Later it became known that hemispheric specialisation is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom.
Rogers also discovered that lateralization of visual projections and visual behaviour in the chick is caused by exposure of the embryo to light just before hatching. The developing chick brain proved to be an excellent model for investigating the influence of hormonal and experiential factors on neural and behavioural development, and memory formation.
Corresponding Fellow of the American Ornithologists’ Union (2005)
Clarke Medal from the Royal Society of New South Wales (2004)
Centenary Medal (2003)
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2000)
ARC Special Investigator Award (1998-2002)