May-Britt Moser (born 1963) is a Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist, who is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). She and her former husband, Edvard Moser, shared half of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, awarded for work concerning the grid cells in the entorhinal cortex, as well as several additional space-representing cell types in the same circuit that make up the positioning system in the brain. Together with Edvard Moser she established the Moser research environment at NTNU, which they lead. Since 2023 she has headed the Centre for Algorithms in the Cortex. Moser received her education as a psychologist at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo and obtained a PhD in neurophysiology at the Faculty of Medicine in 1995; in 1996 she was appointed as associate professor in biological psychology at the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); she was promoted to professor of neuroscience in 2000. In 2002 her research group was given the status of a separate "centre of excellence".
Early life and education May-Britt Moser was born in the small town of Fosnavåg, Møre og Romsdal, Norway, in 1963, the youngest of five children. Although her family owned a small farm, her father worked as a carpenter. This meant that her mother was mainly responsible for caring for the farm. A self-proclaimed "tom-boy," May-Britt was born into a family without excess money, meaning that she did not have the means to travel in the summer. With her free time, she chose to study animals where she found a major passion. May-Britt's mother told her fairytales while she was growing up and always encouraged her to work hard to make her dreams come true. As a child, May-Britt wanted to become a doctor who traveled the world saving people, or even a veterinarian due to her love of animals. She was never a particularly gifted student in grade school, but the right level of encouragement from her teachers saw her talents flourish. Also, her mother - who incidentally herself had nursed a dream of becoming a physician - imposed upon May-Britt that she had to get good grades, lest she have no alternative besides getting a home economics education and end up as a housewife. Moser attended the University of Oslo where she studied psychology, mathematics, and neurobiology. May-Britt chose this school because two of her sisters lived in the Oslo area and provided her with a temporary place to live. She enjoyed the freedom of university, but was not completely sure what she wanted to do with her degree. She was accepted into dentistry school, but declined the offer. May-Britt soon met Edvard I. Moser, whom she recognized from her high school. The couple married on July 27, 1985, and decided to study the relationship between the brain and behavior. In June 1991, the couple had their first child, Isabel. They found it difficult to balance a PhD program with having a child, but their passion for their studies fueled them to bring their daughter along for long days in the lab. Ailin was born in 1995. Later that year, May-Britt Moser obtained a doctorate in neurophysiology for her work recognizing correlations between the structure of the hippocampus and spatial recognition within rats. May-Britt Moser and her husband traveled briefly to the University of Edinburgh to work with Richard Morris, a neuroscientist. They later visited University College London, where they worked in O' Keefe's laboratory. The couple eventually decided to work at Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, where May-Britt became a professor of neuroscience and director of the University's Center for Neural Computation. The couple announced their divorce in 2016, but still continue their scientific work together.
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