Cécile Vogt *1875–1962

Neuroscientist Cécile Vogt was born in Annecy, France, in 1875. In 1893 she was one of the few women to be admitted to the medical faculty in Paris. She received her doctorate in 1900. In 1899 she married the neuroscientist Oskar Vogt. Together, the couple went on to study the brain for a period of 60 years, creating essential foun-dations for today’s understanding of the neuroanatomical structure of the cere-brum. Since she did not receive her medical license in Germany until 1920, from 1902 she worked without pay at the neurobiological laboratory founded by her hus-band at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Berlin. That laboratory became the  Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Brain Research, with Oskar as its director from 1919 and Cécile as a head of department. Repression from the Nazi regime forced the couple to leave Berlin in 1937. However, they were able to continue their work on a smaller scale in Neustadt. 

Vogt-Mugnier was nominated 13 times for the Nobel Prize, but never received it. Her husband’s achievements were given greater prominence and she received little recognition for her outstanding contribution to the foundations of modern brain research. After an extraordinary life of successful scientific and political activities, marriage and managing a family of three  chil dren, Cécile Vogt died in Cambridge, England in 1962.