Gregor Rainer is a EURYI young investigator, associate professor at the University of Fribourg and adjunct professor at EPFL. His research interests center on the study of cognitive functions in the tree shrew and primate visual system, with particular focus on short-term memory, attention and visual learning and the impact of neuromodulation on these processes. Together with his team he employs a number of techniques to study the neural basis of cognitive functions, including multi-channel neuron recording, optical methods, time-resolved in vivo direct-sampling based neurochemical and neuropeptide analyses and biomedical imaging. He has received a number of awards including an APART scholarship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, an award for outstanding teaching from the Tübingen graduate school in Neurosciences and the Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Society.