Rate My Professor Ulrike Grunert

Associate Professor Ulrike Grunert is a leading researcher in visual neuroscience within the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Sydney, where she holds an appointment in Ophthalmology and Visual Science at the Save Sight Institute. She obtained her PhD in Biology from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1985. Following postdoctoral work at the University of Sydney, she pursued research at the Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung in Frankfurt, contributing to seminal studies on retinal structure and function. In 2010, she returned to the University of Sydney to her current position as Associate Professor, focusing on the Save Sight Institute's visual neuroscience initiatives.

Grunert's research expertise centers on the functional neuroanatomy of the mammalian retina, with a special emphasis on the primate retina, including human. Her investigations detail the morphology, molecular markers, and synaptic connections of retinal neurons such as bipolar cells, amacrine cells, and ganglion cells, elucidating parallel pathways like parvo- and magnocellular systems critical for vision. She has produced over 119 peer-reviewed publications, amassing more than 10,482 citations according to Google Scholar. Key works include "Cortical magnification factor and the ganglion cell density of the primate retina" (Wässle et al., Nature, 1989), "Immunocytochemical analysis of bipolar cells in the macaque monkey retina" (Grünert et al., Journal of Comparative Neurology, 1994), "Cell types and cell circuits in human and non-human primate retina" (Progress in Retinal and Eye Research, 2020), and "Analysis of Parvocellular and Magnocellular Visual Pathways in Human Retina" (Masri et al., Journal of Neuroscience, 2020). Her contributions have profoundly influenced understanding of retinal processing and its implications for visual disorders. Grunert has been honored with the Nina Kondelos Award from the Australian Neuroscience Society in 2017 and a Sydney Medical School Foundation Fellowship in the same year. She was also listed among the world's top researchers in neuroscience in 2022.