At age 27, Ioannis Gousias was awarded Neuroscientist of the Year, being the official representative of the United Kingdom. Two years later, he won the “NOBELini” prize for young scientists.
His first postgraduate studies were in Neuroscience at Imperial College London(ICL) with Outstanding Distinction. He has also completed his PhD in Medicine in ICL.
Gousias, now 30, continues his postdoctoral research at the ICL, funded by a competitive grant from the Action Medical Research Organization.
He works on anatomical modeling and brain mapping of infants and children younger than 6 years old. Much of his research has been published on the front page of many renowned scientific journals, such as NeuroImage.
But before having spent many years of studying abroad, he graduated from the National Technical University of Athens with a Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering; that’s why he first asked the Academy of Athens to provide him a grant. But Greeks had a completely different point of view, so they rejected him. They told him “you are pretty good, we are sure universities and companies abroad could offer you a good stipendium.”
“It is a common condition of many grants that the scientist has to return in order to provide them with the technical knowledge he gained during his studies,” he comments. “I am still wondering why my homecountry did not try to have me back here,” he says.
The distinguished neuroscientist added, with regards to the financial crisis, that “it is very sad for someone to walk in downtown Athens. Friends and relatives of mine living in the city center inform me about the situation and say they feel afraid.”
