Dr. Brent Stanfield has been named acting director of the Center for Scientific Review; he assumed his duties on Oct. 1, following the departure of Dr. Ellie Ehrenfeld. He has served as CSR's deputy director since July 2000.

Dr. Brent Stanfield "Dr. Stanfield has worked closely with Dr. Ehrenfeld, planning, directing and coordinating CSR's operations," said NIH director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, who made the appointment. "He has also been instrumental in facilitating the reorganization of CSR's peer review committees...I appreciate his willingness to lead CSR through this transition period." Before coming to CSR, Stanfield was director of the Office of Science Policy and Program Planning at the National Institute of Mental Health. He ran the NIMH unit on developmental neuroanatomy in the Laboratory of Neurophysiology between 1987 and 1996. While at NIMH, he spent several months at CSR, helping to implement the reorganization of the scientific review groups that review neuroscience grant applications.

Stanfield was reared in California and received his undergraduate degree in biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine. After receiving his Ph.D. in neurobiology from Washington University, St. Louis, in 1978 he returned to California, to faculty positions at the Salk Institute and the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine before coming to NIH. He has published over 50 journal articles in his field, many of them focused on the development and plasticity of the brain's cerebral cortex, especially the hippocampal formation. Stanfield also has served as a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Comparative Neurology and as an associate editor of the Journal of Neuroscience.