Rate My Professor Norbert Fortin

Norbert J. Fortin is Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior within the Charlie Dunlop School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine. He earned a B.S. in Psychology from McGill University in 1998, receiving First Class Honours, Dean's Honour List recognition, and the McConnell Award. He obtained his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Boston University in 2003. Fortin held a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Postdoctoral fellowship from the NIH from 2006 to 2008. He was a finalist for the Donald B. Lindsley Prize for Most Outstanding Thesis in Behavioral Neuroscience, awarded by the Grass Foundation and the Society for Neuroscience in 2004. Additional honors include graduate fellowships from the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche (FCAR) in Québec (2002-2003), the Presidential University Graduate Fellowship from Boston University (1998-2002), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; 1998-2002). At UCI, he serves as Director of the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program (Graduate) and as a Fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

Fortin's research investigates the neural mechanisms supporting the temporal organization of memories, with a focus on episodic memory, sequence memory, the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, electrophysiology, and temporary brain inactivations. His laboratory explores how the brain encodes and retrieves memories of event sequences and elapsed time. Key publications include 'The evolution of episodic memory' (PNAS, 2013), 'Critical Role of the Hippocampus in Memory for Elapsed Time' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2013), 'Nonspatial sequence coding in CA1 neurons' (Journal of Neuroscience, 2016), 'Proximal CA1 20–40 Hz power dynamics reflect trial-specific information processing supporting nonspatial sequence memory' (eLife, 2022), and 'Hippocampal ensembles represent sequential relationships among an extended sequence of nonspatial events' (Nature Communications, 2022). His contributions have advanced understanding of memory processes in the mammalian brain, bridging behavioral neuroscience and systems-level analyses.