Ralph Siegel (scientist)

Ralph Mitchell Siegel, a researcher who studied the neurological underpinnings of vision, was a professor of neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, in the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience. He died September 2, 2011, at his home following a long illness.

Siegel, a neurophysiologist, was interested in the basic mechanisms underlying visual motion and spatial perception, with the ultimate goal of developing applications to assist people who have visual processing disorders and neurological injuries. He performed pioneering work on parietal neurons and the influence of eye position and attention on perception. His laboratory became the first to perform optical imaging of parietal cortex in behaving non-human primates.