1 in 3 people will suffer brain illness or injury in their lifetime.
Brain diseases and injuries cost society as much as $2 TRILLION per year in the US and EU.
Brain disorders and injuries cost society more than cancer and cardiovascular disease COMBINED.
1.7 MILLION Americans have Autism.
1.7 MILLION Americans suffer a Traumatic Brain Injury every year.
Approximately 1 million Americans suffer from Parkinson’s disease.
Over 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s Disease.
For every soldier killed in war in 2012, about 25 veterans took their own lives.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is one of the LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH AND DISABILITY in America.
By 2023, over 46 million American adults will suffer from a mental disorder.
53,000 Americans die every year due to Traumatic Brain Injury.
8 teenagers die EVERY DAY in the US from TBI.
Neurological disorders constitute 12% of total deaths globally each year.
There are 5 MILLION Americans living with TBI-related disabilities.
Mental disorders make up 35% of the cost of all non-communicable diseases worldwide.
5.3 MILLION Americans have lifelong disabilities due to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
Direct and indirect cost of TBI is $76 BILLION per year in the US.
Nearly 8% of the US population suffers from POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS in their lifetime.
300,000 soldiers suffer TBI and/or PTS.
Women are about twice as likely as men to develop PTSD.
There is 1 military suicide per day in the US.
FOUR people commit suicide EVERY HOUR in the United States.
In the U.S., serious mental illness causes earnings loss of $193.2 billion annually.
90% of suicide victims have a TREATABLE MENTAL DISORDER.
Nearly 10% of people with SCHIZOPHRENIA commit suicide.
Number one sport per capita for traumatic brain injury is GIRLS SOCCER.
HALF A MILLION children under 14 go to the emergency room every year for TBI.
Funding for brain research from government and pharmaceutical companies is DECREASING EVERY YEAR.
Someone develops Alzheimer’s Disease EVERY 68 SECONDS.
Alzheimer’s Disease is the 6th LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH in US adults.
Traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults.
TBI patients are up to 5 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
Medicaid and Medicare spend $130 BILLION per year on Alzheimer’s patients.
One in 10 high school athletes involved in contact sports sustain a concussion each year.
Over 400,000 Americans have Multiple Sclerosis.
An athlete who sustains a concussion is 5 times more likely to sustain a second concussion.
People with TBI are nearly twice as likely to report binge drinking.
The lowest rates of Multiple Sclerosis are in countries nearest to the EQUATOR.
20% of U.S. troops returning from combat tours show symptoms of PTSD or major depression.
DEPRESSION is the LEADING CAUSE of disease burden in the U.S.
Nearly 7% of American adults had a MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODE in the past 12 months.
81.1 million people will be affected by dementia by 2040.
Over 2 MILLION Americans over the age of 18 suffer from BIPOLAR DISORDER.
About one in 10 individuals will have at least one epileptic seizure in their lifetime.
TBI victims are 50% more likely to suffer from depression.
Over 2 MILLION Americans have SCHIZOPHRENIA.
Among people with MS, physical disability contributes to a nearly 70% unemployment rate.
The annual medical cost of Schizophrenia in the US is OVER $32B.

Staff and Board

EXECUTIVE STAFF

General Peter Chiarelli, United States Army (Retired)

General Peter Chiarelli, USA (Ret.) was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of One Mind for Research in 2012. He is a retired four-star General with 40 years of experience designing and implementing American defense policy for the U.S. Army and Department of Defense in peace and during combat operations.

As the 32nd Vice Chief of Staff in the Army, Chiarelli was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Army and its 1.1 million active and reserve soldiers. This included the Army’s research, development and execution of studies followed by the implementation of recommendations related to the Army’s behavioral health programs, specifically its Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention Program.

As commander of the Multi-National Corps-Iraq, Chiarelli coordinated the actions of all four military services and was responsible for the day-to-day combat operations of more than 147,000 U.S. and Coalition troops. He was also the Senior Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense from March 2007 to August 2008. Chiarelli pioneered efforts to restore government, economic stability and essential services during two tours in Iraq; exercised command and control of combat operations; and trained, prepared and mobilized reserve forces for critical response operations. He retired from the Army in 2012 after almost 40 years of service.

As the CEO of One Mind for Research, Chiarelli continues his advocacy for eliminating the stigma associated with Service Members and Veterans seeking and receiving the assistance they need for the treatment of the invisible wounds of war: Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Co-founded by former Congressman Patrick Kennedy and mental health advocate Garen Staglin, One Mind for Research (currently a division of IMHRO) is an independent, non-profit organization bringing together health care providers, researchers, academics and the health care industry - on a global scale – with the goal to rapidly develop new treatments and cures for all illnesses and disorders of the brain.

Chiarelli holds a Bachelor of Science degree in political science from Seattle University; a Master of Public Administration degree from the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington; and a Master of Arts degree in national security strategy from Salve Regina University. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Naval Command and Staff College and the National War College.

Magali Haas, MD, PhD

Dr. Haas is the Chief Science and Technology Officer for One Mind for Research.   She is also Founder and CEO of Orion Bionetworks, a non-profit research alliance focused on developing computational bionetwork models of human disease through strategic partnering with an initial focus on multiple sclerosis.

Magali has over 15 years of pharmaceutical executive and clinical research experience, predominantly at Johnson & Johnson, where she assumed broad end-to-end development leadership roles in medical marketing, full clinical development, early development, and translational and biomarker sciences in psychiatry and neurology. As an “intrapreneur” at J&J she established the first Neuroscience Translational Medicine & Integrative Solutions departments, and co-founded the first Companion Diagnostics Center of Excellence.  She serves on several advisory boards including the Irish Health Review Board, International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility, IMEC for nanoelectronics, and Guardian Angels for biosensors.

Magali earned her Bachelor of Science in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Science in biomedical engineering degree from Rutgers University, New Jersey, and her medical degree and doctorate in neuroscience from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, under the National Institutes of Health Medical Scientist Training Program. She has published over 20 peer-reviewed articles, holds several patents and authored a chapter on Pediatric Trial Methodology.

Janet Carbary, CPA

Janet Carbary is the Chief Financial Officer of One Mind. She has a diverse background organizational management and stragetic planning in the healthcare industry. Janet has held executive positions in finance and management, with over 25 years of experience as CFO, COO, and CEO with hospital systems in Texas, New Mexico, and Washington State. She  has done additional work for a clinical laboratory and a start-up durable medical company.

Janet earned her Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from Eastern Washington University and did postgraduate work in the MBA program at Gonzaga University.

Stephen Johnson

Stephen Johnson is the Chief Intellectual Property and Policy Officer for One Mind for Research.

Stephen has over 30 years of experience in intellectual property law, beginning his career at Bird & Bird in London. Stephen subsequently became an associate and partner with Kirkland &Ellis LLP in Chicago, and continued his career as a founding partner of both Kirkland’s New York and San Francisco offices, opening the San Francisco office as senior resident partner. He is the former head of Kirkland’s New York and San Francisco intellectual property groups.  

Stephen’s legal practice focused on domestic and international intellectual property based transactions, including joint ventures, product development, university collaborations, outsourcing, finance, royalty buyouts and securitization, and technology driven corporate transactions.  Stephen worked predominantly on transactions in the life science and software industries and worked with senior management of clients on a wide range of legal issues including intellectual property risk management and strategy.  

Among other distinctions, Stephen was listed in Chambers USA: Leading Lawyers for Business; named as  one of America's top 25 pre-eminent Information Technology practitioners in the publication ‘Guide to the World's Leading Lawyers - Best of the Best USA, 2011; and included in  Intellectual Asset Management magazine's list of the world's top patent and technology licensing lawyers.  He is a former chair of the Technology Committee of the International Bar Association.

Stephen obtained a degree in Natural Sciences (Genetics) from Cambridge University in England, and graduated from law schools in London and Chicago. Stephen is a member of the board of Cambridge in America.

Stephen Larson, PhD

Stephen D. Larson is an expert on the intersection between computer technology and biological systems.  He is interested in how computer systems can help us to understand fundamental principles of life.  

He has co-developed a patent, presented at more than two dozen forums, published in academic journals such as Frontiers in Neuroscience and Nature, and has had his work featured in the New York Times, Wired, Discover, and MSNBC.com.  

His diverse educational background includes a Bachelor and Masters degree in Computer Science from MIT as well as a Ph.D in neuroscience from UCSD.  He has worked as a professional software engineer for a major New York City investment bank.

Lenny O'Donnell

Lenny is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for One Mind. His career in media, marketing, and communications has been primarily focused on production of film and television content, along with advertising and marketing campaigns on screen, on line, and in print.

An award-winning producer, Lenny has dozens of credits in major network television, including programming for NBC, Paramount, MGM, Bravo, Showtime, Discovery, Travel Channel, and MSNBC.

He has also produced several notable feature films, including the 2006 Academy Award Best Documentary semifinalist On Native Soil, narrated by Oscar winners Kevin Costner & Hilary Swank.  The film has been lauded as one of the most important films made about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Prior to joining One Mind, he was the Director and co-founder of the Masters Degree program in Producing for Film & Digital Media at the Seattle Film Institute, where he taught postgraduate courses in business, marketing, public relations, and finance.

Lenny is a graduate of Queen Anne High School and the University of Washington in Seattle.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Garen K. Staglin

Garen is the co-founder and co-chairman of One Mind for Research, and the co-founder, President, and trustee of the International Mental Health Research Organization. During the past 18 years, IMHRO and the Staglin’s Music Festival for Mental Health event have raised more than $140 million for mental health charities and research. He is also co-founder and President of Bring Change 2 Mind, a non-profit organization dedicated to eliminating the stigma of mental illness.

Garen has spent more than 30 years building and starting companies in the financial services and payment industries as a private equity investor and philanthropist. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Silicon Valley Bank, ExL Services, NVoice Payments, Profit Velocity Solutions, and Specialized Bicycle Corporation. He is also a Senior Advisor to FTV Capital.

He earned his Bachelor of Science in Engineering from UCLA and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a recipient of the Gold Spike Award, Stanford University’s highest award for volunteer service and the UCLA College of Letters & Science Fellows Award.

Garen, his wife Shari, and their children, Brandon and Shannon, are founders of the Staglin Family Vineyard in Rutherford, California. Actively involved for 25 years in the wine industry, the Staglins’ motto is “Great Wine for Great Causes” and through the operation of their winery, business interests, and support of various charitable causes, they have indeed lived up to that philosophy. In the last ten years, causes they have chaired or donations from their wines have generated more than $750 million.

Patrick J. Kennedy

Patrick Kennedy, the co-founder of One Mind for Research, served 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and is predominantly known as the author and lead sponsor of the Mental Health Parity & Addiction Equity Act of 2008. This dramatic piece of legislation provides access to mental health treatment to tens of millions of Americans who previously were denied care.

Congressman Kennedy has authored and co-sponsored dozens of bills to increase the understanding and treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders, including the National Neurotechnology Initiative Act, the Genomics and Personalized Medicine Act, the COMBAT PTSD Act, and the Alzheimer’s Treatment and Caregiver Support Act.

He is a winner of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Distinguished Service Award, the Society for Neuroscience Public Service Award, the Autism Society of America Congressional Leadership Award, the Depression and Bipolar Support Paul Wellstone Mental Health Award, and the Epilepsy Foundation Public Service Award. He is also founder of the Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus and the 21st Century Healthcare Caucus.

Shumeet Banerji

Shumeet Banerji is a Senior Partner of Booz & Company. He was the founding Chief Executive Officer of Booz & Company from 2008-2012. He joined the firm in Chicago in 1993. Prior to his election to CEO, he was the Managing Director of the firm’s European practice. He co-founded and co-led the firm’s practice in India in the mid-1990s. Mr. Banerji has advised public and private sector entities around the world, serving clients in the financial services, telecoms, technology and media, consumer products and retail, resources, steel, and chemicals industries. He has advised diversified conglomerates, investors, and governments. Typical issues have spanned the entire senior agenda, including corporate strategy, senior organization, board performance, transformational change, operational performance improvement, M&A, and compensation.

He is a frequent speaker at key economic and business conferences around the world including the World Economic Forum and the Global Economic Symposium. For the last few years he has focused on leadership issues in the aftermath of the financial crisis. He is the author of numerous articles and is co-author of Cut Costs and Grow Stronger.

Mr. Banerji serves on the Board of Directors of Hewlett-Packard Company, the Panel of Senior Advisers of Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) and the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, where he received his Ph.D. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business before joining the firm.

Matthias Bowman

Mr. Bowman founded RCT Logic, LLC in 2008. Previously, he was Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Merrill Lynch and Chief Executive Officer of Merrill Lynch Ventures.

Mr. Bowman is a founder of Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust, and has previously served on the Board of Directors of MedAvante, Definity Health, Active Health Management, Borg-Warner Automotive, Del Monte Foods, Supermarkets General Corporation, Teleport Communications Group, and U.S. Foodservice.

Mr. Bowman manages the Bowman Family Foundation. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the International Mental Health Research Organization (IMHRO) and the Sylvan C. Herman Foundation, and is a member of two Advisory Committees of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Board of Advisors of ACTTION (a public private partnership founded by the FDA which is focused on improving development of analgesic therapies). He was formerly a Trustee, member of the Executive Committee, and Chairman of the Finance Committee of the American Cancer Society Foundation, and a member of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of NARSAD.

Mr. Bowman attended Williams College, where he was elected Phi Beta Kappa in 1969 and graduated summa cum laude in 1970. In 1972 he graduated from the Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar. In recent years he has studied Molecular Biology, Neuroscience and Biostatistics.

Gary Gottlieb, MD

Gary Gottlieb is the president and CEO of Partners HealthCare. At Partners, he previously served as president of Brigham and Women’s/Faulkner Hospitals, as the president of North Shore Medical Center and as Chairman of Partners Psychiatry and Mental Health System. He is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Prior to joining Partners HealthCare, Gary spent 15 years in positions of increasing leadership in health care. He attended the University of Pennsylvania as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. Through that program, he earned a Master of Business Administration with Distinction in Health Care Administration from Penn’s Wharton Graduate School of Business Administration. Gary went on to establish Penn Medical Center’s first program in geriatric psychiatry and developed it into a nationally recognized research, training and clinical program. He rose to become Executive Vice-Chair and Interim Chair of Penn’s Department of Psychiatry and the Health System’s Associate Dean for Managed Care. Later, Gary became the Director and Chief Executive Officer of Friends Hospital in Philadelphia, the nation’s oldest freestanding psychiatric hospital.

In addition to his noteworthy academic, clinical and management record, Gary has published extensively in geriatric psychiatry and health care policy. He is a past President of the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Gary received his Bachelor of Science cum laude from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Doctor of Medicine from the Albany Medical College of Union University. He completed his internship and residency and served as Chief Resident in Psychiatry at New York University/Bellevue Medical Center.

As a recognized community leader in Boston, Gary focuses his attention on workforce development and disparities in health care. He was appointed by Mayor Thomas Menino as Chairman of the Private Industry Council, the City’s workforce development board, which partners with education, labor, higher education, the community and government, to provide oversight and leadership to public and private workforce development programs, and he served as co-chair of the Mayor’s Task Force to Eliminate Health Disparities. He also serves on the boards of Partners In Health and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences.

Susan Viniar

Susan Viniar has been an active community volunteer for the past 25 years. She has had significant involvement with The Valley Hospital, Ridgewood, NJ for the past 16 years. Sue is currently a Trustee of the Valley Health System and an Honorary Trustee of The Valley Hospital Foundation. She is also the Chairman of the hospital’s $175 million capital campaign, having served in that capacity for the past 5 years.

Sue is the Chair of the Board of Directors at Pony Power Therapies, a therapeutic horseback riding program in Mahwah, NJ. Serving as the first board chair, Sue has helped the program significantly expand facilities, programs and fundraising.

Sue has also been involved in development at Duke University and Brown University. At Duke, Sue was actively involved in the Parent’s Program, serving as class chairman. She also served on the university-wide committee charged with raising $300 million for scholarships. At Brown, Sue served on the Parent’s Committee, and has also been involved with The Ridgewood Education Foundation, Friends of the Ridgewood Library, and The Ridgewood Public Schools.

Sue received a BA in Education and a BA in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Western Washington University in 1974. She received a MA in Audiology from Ohio University in 1975. Sue also earned an MBA at Northwestern University in 1982. She worked as a pediatric audiologist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Boston Children’s Hospital. She worked in strategic planning at Baxter after completing her MBA.

Sue is married and is the mother of four children. She currently resides in New York City and Santa Barbara, CA.
 

STRATEGIC ADVISORY BOARD

Steven E. Hyman, MD, Chair

Steven E. Hyman, M.D. is Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, and Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. From 2001 to 2011, he served as Provost of Harvard University, the University’s chief academic officer.  As Provost he had a special focus on development of collaborative initiatives, especially in the sciences, spanning multiple disciplines and institutions.  From 1996 to 2001, he served as director of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where he emphasized investment in neuroscience and emerging genetic technologies, and initiated a series of large clinical trials to inform practice.  Prior to his government service he was the first faculty director of Harvard University's interdisciplinary Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative.

Hyman is the editor of the Annual Review of Neuroscience, President of the International Neuroethics Society, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academies where he serves on the governing Council, the Board of Health Science Policy, and chairs the Neuroscience Forum which brings together industry, government, and academia.  He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Hyman received his B.A. summa cum laude from Yale College and an M.A. from the University of Cambridge, which he attended as a Mellon fellow, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Susan Amara, PhD

Susan G. Amara is the Thomas Detre Professor and Chair of Neurobiology in the School of Medicine, and Distinguished Professor and Co-director of the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh.  Work in her laboratory has focused on the structure, function, and cellular physiology of neurotransmitter transporters, including the biogenic amine transporters, major targets for psychostimulant drugs and antidepressants.  She received a BS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and a PhD in Physiology and Pharmacology from the University of California, San Diego and has previously held faculty positions at Yale University School of Medicine, at the Vollum Institute in Portland Oregon and as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Yale and in Oregon.

Amara has received the Burroughs Wellcome Hitchings Award in drug discovery, the Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award, the John Jacob Abel Young Investigator Award from the ASPET, a McKnight Neuroscience Investigator Award, a MERIT Award from NIDA, a NARSAD Distinguished Investigator Award, and the Julius Axelrod Award from the Catecholamine Society. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2004), a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007) and is a past-President of the Society for Neuroscience (2011).  Beginning in January 2013 Amara be moving her laboratory to the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda where she will serve as Scientific Director of the NIMH Intramural Program.

Brian Athey, PhD

Brian Athey is Collegiate Professor and Inaugural Chair of the Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan Medical School. He is also a Professor of Psychiatry and of Internal Medicine. He is the founding Principal Investigator of the NIH National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCIBI), one of eight NIH National Biomedical Computing Centers.  He also serves as US Academic lead and Co-PI of tranSMART, an emerging US and EU consortium to create and support an open data and analytic software “Apps Store” to accelerate clinical and translational research.  Brian also serves as the Biomedical Informatics Core Director of Michigan’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), and is Associate Director of the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research (MICHR). Brian has served as Director of Academic Informatics for the Medical School.  Brian is an active teacher and mentor, being the Principal Investigator of the U-M NIH/NIGMS Bioinformatics Training Grant; he has trained more than 15 Ph.D. students and Post-Doctoral Fellows.

Brian led the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Next-Generation Internet (NGI) Visible Human Project and the DARPA Virtual Soldier Project.  He has over 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications and proceedings, ranging from bioinformatics, metabolomics, computational biology, optical imaging, and grid computing.  Brian is a highly sought after speaker and has been honored with several awards for his work.  He has served as a special advisor to the CIO of the NIH and to the DARPA Defense Science Office (DSO). Brian is the Chairmen of the Technical Advisory Board Chairman of the 1Mind4Research, an emerging neuroscience Public Private Partnership. He is also a founding member and former Board Chairman of the non-profit Scientists & Engineers of America (SEA), based in Washington, D.C. He received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology (Biophysics concentration) from the University of Michigan, where he and collaborators were the first to propose the double helical ‘crossed-linker’ for chromatin structure.  His is still a very active researcher in this field.

Randy Buckner, PhD

Randy L. Buckner is Professor of Psychology and of Neuroscience at Harvard University and affiliated with the Center for Brain Science.  He is also Professor at the Harvard Medical School and the Director for Psychiatric Neuroimaging Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his Ph.D. degree in neuroscience from Washington University, under the direction of Steven Petersen and Marcus Raichle.  He trained with Bruce Rosen as a postdoctoral fellow and then Instructor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, where he pioneered new functional MRI methods to study human memory.  Over the past decade his work has expanded to include studies of Alzheimer's disease and neuropsychiatric illness with a focus on developing biomarkers for disease detection and progression.  This work has led to a description of the brain’s default network and how it is targeted early in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Professor Buckner’s awards include the Wiley Young Investigator Award from the Organization of Human Brain Mapping, the Young Investigator Award from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, the 2007 Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences, and the 2010 Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease from the MetLife Foundation.

Karl Diesseroth, MD, PhD

A native of Boston, Deisseroth received his bachelor's degree from Harvard in 1992, his PhD from Stanford in 1998, and his MD from Stanford in 2000. He completed postdoctoral training, medical internship, and adult psychiatry residency at Stanford, and he was board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He is a faculty member in the Bioengineering and Psychiatry Departments at Stanford, and continues as a practicing inpatient and outpatient psychiatrist at Stanford, employing medications and interventional brain stimulation techniques (VNS, TMS and others) to treat patients with psychiatric disease. In addition he serves as Director of Undergraduate Education in Bioengineering at Stanford, teaches yearly courses in both the graduate and undergraduate curricula, and provides education and training in optogenetics as well as freely distributing and supporting tools and expertise to thousands of scientists worldwide. Among other awards, for developing and applying optogenetics, Deisseroth has received the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award and the McKnight Foundation Techological Innovations Award, and was the sole recipient of the 2010 Koetser Prize, the 2010 Nakasone Prize, and the 2011 Alden Spencer Prize. In 2010 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2012.

Robert DeSimone

Robert Desimone is director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Prior to joining the McGovern Institute in 2004, he was director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Mental Health, the largest mental health research center in the world. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of numerous awards, including the Troland Prize of the National Academy of Sciences, and the Golden Brain Award of the Minerva Foundation.

Joseph Fins, MD, MACP

Joseph J. Fins is The E. William Davis, Jr. M.D. Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College where he also serves as Professor of Medicine (with Tenure), Professor of Public Health and Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry. He is also an Attending Physician and the Director of Medical Ethics at New York-Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center and on the Adjunct Faculty of Rockefeller University where he is a Senior Attending Physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital. Dr. Fins is an elected Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research, Dr. Fins has also received a Soros Open Society Institute Project on Death in America Faculty Scholars Award, a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation Visiting Fellowship and support from the Dana, Buster and Katz Foundations. He was appointed by President Clinton to The White House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy and currently serves on The New York State Task Force on Life and the Law by gubernatorial appointment.

Dr. Fins was graduated from Wesleyan University (B.A. with Honors, The College of Letters, 1982) and Cornell University Medical College (M.D., 1986). He completed his residency in Internal Medicine and Fellowship in General Internal Medicine at The New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center and has served as Associate for Medicine at The Hastings Center. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Fred Gage

Fred Gage is a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute, and has concentrated on the adult central nervous system and the unexpected plasticity and adaptability that remains throughout the life of all mammals.

In 1998, Gage and Peter Eriksson discovered and announced that the human brain produces new nerve cells in adulthood. Until then, it had been assumed that humans are born with all the brain cells they will ever have.

Dr. Gage received his Bachelor of Science degree from theUniversity of Florida and a Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University He did his post-doctoral work at Lund University in Sweden, under the direction of cell transplantation pioneer Anders Bjorklund. He serves as a member of the Science Advisory Board of the Genetics Policy Institute.

Dan Geschwind, MD, PhD

Dr. Daniel Geschwind is the Gordon and Virginia MacDonald Distinguished Chair in Human Genetics and is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine. He is director of the Neurogenetics Program and the Center for Autism Research and Treatment (CART) and co-director of the Center for Neurobehavioral Genetics at UCLA. Dr. Geschwind obtained an A.B. in psychology and chemistry at Dartmouth College and his M.D./Ph.D. at Yale School of Medicine prior to completing his internship, residency, and postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1997.

In addition to his research, Dr. Geschwind is active on the scientific advisory boards of the March of Dimes (Committee C), Cure Autism Now Foundation (now Autism Speaks), Faculty of 1000 Medicine, the NIMH Scientific Advisory Council. He received the Derek Denny-Brown Neurological Scholar Award from the American Neurological Association in 2004, the Scientific Service Award from Autism Speaks in 2008, and was inducted into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2011.

Hank Greeley, JD

Hank Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics at Stanford University.  He specializes in ethical, legal, and social issues arising from advances in the biosciences, particularly from genetics, neuroscience, and human stem cell research.  He chairs the California Advisory Committee on Human Stem Cell Research and the steering committee of the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics, and directs the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences.  From 2007 to 2010 he was a co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project.  In 2006, he was elected a fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science.  

Professor Greely graduated from Stanford in 1974 and from Yale Law School in 1977.  He served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom on the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court.  After working during the Carter Administration in the Departments of Defense and Energy, he entered private practice in Los Angeles in 1981 as a litigator with the law firm of Tuttle & Taylor, Inc.  He began teaching at Stanford in 1985.

David Holtzman, MD

David M. Holtzman is the Andrew B. and Gretchen P. Jones Professor and chairman of the Department of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  He is also the associate director of the university’s Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and co-director of the program on protein aggregation and neurodegeneration for the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders. 

Dr. Holtzman has conducted groundbreaking studies on Alzheimer's disease (AD) and hypoxic-ischemic brain injury.  His discoveries concerning the production of amyloid-beta at neuronal synapses and the identification of new ways to measure how amyloid-beta is produced and cleared from the human brain were named two of the top 50 scientific innovations in 2006 by Scientific American.  His studies have also been important in explaining why apoE4 is an AD risk factor and in development of anti-Abeta antibodies as therapies.

His many honors include the American Academy of Neurology’s 2003 Potamkin Prize for Research on Alzheimer’s, Pick’s and Related Diseases, a 2006 recipient of the MetLife award on Alzheimer's disease, election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008, an alumni merit award from Northwestern University School of Medicine, the PhRMA research and Hope award in 2012, and president of the neuroscience section of the AAAS (2012).

Frances Jensen, MD

Dr. Jensen is the Chair of Neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.  She was formerly Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School and Director of Translational Neuroscience and Director of Epilepsy Research at Boston Children's Hospital and senior neurologist at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. 

She is a graduate of Cornell Medical College and did her neurology residency training at the Harvard Longwood Neurology Residency Program.  Her research focuses on mechanisms of epilepsy and stroke, with specific emphasis on injury in the developing brain as well as age specific therapies for clinical trials development.  She received a 2007 Director’s Pioneer Award from the NIH to explore the interaction between epileptogenesis and cognitive dysfunction.  Dr. Jensen was the recipient of the 2008 American Epilepsy Society Basic Science Research Award.  Dr. Jensen is President of the American Epilepsy Society in 2012 and serves on a number of other leadership boards including the Council for the Society for Neuroscience, the nominating committee at the American Neurological Association, and is on Council at NICHD

Dr. Jensen also is the sponsor of an FDA-approved IND for an ongoing multi-center clinical trial of a novel therapy for neonatal seizures, generated from basic research in her laboratory.  She is also an advocate for awareness of the adolescent brain development, its unique strengths and vulnerabilities, as well as their impact on medical, social, and educational issues unique to teenagers and young adults. 

Robert Malenka, MD, PhD

Dr. Robert C. Malenka is the Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Director of the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory and co-Director of the Stanford Institute for Neuro-Innovation and Translational Neurosciences.

Dr. Malenka graduated from Harvard in 1978, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in biology. He received an M.D. and a Ph.D. in neuroscience in 1983 from Stanford University School of Medicine. Over the ensuing 6 years he completed residency training in psychiatry at Stanford and 4 years of postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). In 1989, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Physiology at UCSF at which he reached the rank of Full Professor in 1996.  In addition to running an active research program at UCSF he was the Director of the Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction and Associate Director of the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry. He returned to the Stanford School of Medicine in 1999.

He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine as well as an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Helen Mayberg, MD

Helen S. Mayberg is Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Radiology and the Dorothy Fuqua Chair in Psychiatry Imaging and Therapeutics at Emory University School of Medicine.  She heads an active research program studying brain mechanisms mediating depression pathogenesis and antidepressant treatment response using neuroimaging and pioneered the development of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment resistant depression.  Ongoing studies emphasize the development of imaging biomarkers that can optimize treatment selection in individual depressed patients at all stages of illness.  New DBS studies are additionally focused on mechanisms of action mediating clinical effects as well as development of adjunctive neuro-rehabilitation strategies tailored to this patient group.

Dr. Mayberg is a Board Certified Neurologist, trained at Columbia's Neurological Institute in New York, with fellowship training in nuclear medicine at Johns Hopkins. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine and the Dana Alliance and is an active participant in a wide variety of advisory and scientific activities across multiple fields in neuroscience.  

Eric Nestler, MD, PhD

Dr. Nestler is the Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where he serves as Chair of the Department of Neuroscience and Director of the Friedman Brain Institute. He received his B.A., Ph.D., and M.D. degrees, and psychiatry residency training, from Yale University. He served on the Yale faculty from 1987-2000, where he was the Elizabeth Mears and House Jameson Professor of Psychiatry and Neurobiology, and Director of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry. He moved to Dallas in 2000 where he served as the Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center until moving to New York in 2008.

Dr. Nestler is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The goal of Dr. Nestler’s research is to better understand the molecular mechanisms of addiction and depression based on work in animal models, and to use this information to develop improved treatments of these disorders.

Marina Picciotto, PhD

Marina Picciotto is the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor in Psychiatry and Professor of Neurobiology and Pharmacology at Yale University. Dr. Picciotto received her B.S. from Stanford University and her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University with Dr. Paul Greengard. She went on to conduct postdoctoral work at the Pasteur Institute in Paris with Dr. Jean-Pierre Changeux before joining the faculty at Yale University in 1995.

Dr. Picciotto has won several awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, The Human Frontiers Science Program Organization 10th Anniversary Award and the Waletzky Prize for Research on Substance Abuse and the Brain or Nervous System. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2012.

Dr. Picciotto serves on the advisory board of the Society for Neuroscience as an elected Councilor and is a member of the Scientific Council of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She has been a Senior (2006-2012) and Reviewing Editor of the Journal of Neuroscience, and a Handling Editor for Neuroscience Letters (2004-2008) and the Journal of Nicotine and Tobacco Research (2006-present).

Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD

Dr. Kerry J. Ressler received his Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology from M.I.T., and his M.D./Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School. In 1992 at Harvard, he was the first student of Dr. Linda Buck (Nobel Prize, 2004), helping to identify the molecular organization of the olfactory receptor system.  Dr. Ressler is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University.

He is on the Scientific Councils of the Brain and Behavior Foundation, Anxiety and Depression Association of America, and the Dana Alliance for Brain Research, among others.  He has won numerous national and international awards, including from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the International Society for Trauma Studies.  He was recently named a Kraepelin Professor at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry, Munich and a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Richard J. Hodes, MD (Ex Officio)

Richard J. Hodes directs the research program of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, with an annual budget of over $1.1 billion supporting diverse research programs on the biology, clinical, behavioral and social aspects of aging. Dr. Hodes is a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, member of The Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Hodes is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Medical School. He is the author of more than 250 research papers in the field of immunology.

Thomas Insel, MD (Ex Officio)

Thomas R. Insel is Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the component of the National Institutes of Health charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental disorders.  His tenure at NIMH has been distinguished by groundbreaking findings in the areas of practical clinical trials, autism research, and the role of genetics in mental illnesses.  Dr. Insel also serves as Acting Director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), since December 2011. 

Prior to his appointment as NIMH Director in the Fall 2002, Dr. Insel was Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University.  There, he was founding director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, one of the largest science and technology centers funded by the National Science Foundation and, concurrently, director of an NIH-funded Center for Autism Research.  From 1994 to 1999, he was Director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta.  While at Emory, Dr. Insel continued the line of research he had initiated at NIMH studying the neurobiology of complex social behaviors.

Dr. Insel has served on numerous academic, scientific, and professional committees and boards.  He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and is a recipient of several awards, including the Outstanding Service Award from the U.S. Public Health Service and the 2010 La Fondation IPSEN Neuronal Plasticity Prize.  Dr. Insel graduated from the combined B.A.-M.D. program at Boston University in 1974.

Joel Kupersmith, MD (Ex Officio)

Joel Kupersmith is the Chief Research and Development Officer of the Veterans Health Administration, where he oversees VA’s extensive medical research program. He has over 160 publications, including two books, to his name, most recently publishing on health policy issues including comparative effectiveness research.

He is a graduate of New York Medical College and completed a cardiology fellowship at Beth Israel Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kupersmith was a professor and director of clinical pharmacology at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine; chief of cardiology at the University of Louisville; chair of Michigan State University’s Department of Medicine; and dean of Texas Tech University’s School of Medicine and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the university’s vice president for clinical affairs and CEO of faculty practice.

Story Landis, PhD (Ex Officio)

STORY LANDIS, Ph.D. has been Director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) since 2003. Dr. Landis received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College in 1967 and her Ph.D. (1973) from Harvard University.  After postdoctoral work at Harvard University, she served on the faculty of the Department of Neurobiology there.  In 1985, she joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where she created the Department of Neurosciences that achieved an international reputation for excellence. She has garnered many honors, is an elected fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Neurological Association and in 2002 was elected President of the Society for Neuroscience.

Nora D. Volkow, MD (Ex Officio)

Nora D. Volkow became Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health in May 2003. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction.

Dr. Volkow was born in Mexico, attended the Modern American School, and earned her medical degree from the National University of Mexico in Mexico City, where she received the Premio Robins award for best medical student of her generation. Her psychiatric residency was at New York University, where she earned the Laughlin Fellowship Award as one of the 10 Outstanding Psychiatric Residents in the USA.  

Dr. Volkow spent most of her professional career at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Upton, New York, where she held several leadership positions including Director of Nuclear Medicine, Chairman of the Medical Department, and Associate Director for Life Sciences. In addition, Dr. Volkow was a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Associate Dean of the Medical School at the State University of New York (SUNY)-Stony Brook.