Gary Small, M.D., is Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Parlow-Solomon Professor on Aging at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he is also Founding Director of the UCLA Memory Clinic and Director of the UCLA Center on Aging.
He has authored more than 400 scientific publications, as well as five books, including the international best seller, The Memory Bible. His research, supported by the National Institutes of Health, has made headlines in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and USA Today. Scientific American magazine named him one of the world’s leading innovators in science and technology.
Dr. Small lectures throughout the world and frequently appears on The Today Show, Good Morning America, PBS, and CNN.
Henry Greely, J.D.
Henry Greely specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics and stem cell research. He frequently serves as an advisor on California, national and international policy issues. He is chair of California’s Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee and served from 2007 to 2010 as co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. Active in university leadership, Professor Greely chairs the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and directs both the law school’s Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Interdisciplinary Group on Neuroscience and Society.
In 2007, Professor Greely was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Story Landis, Ph.D.
Story Landis, Ph.D. has been Director of the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) since 2003. A native of New England, Dr. Landis received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and her Ph.D. 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 which, under her leadership, achieved an international reputation for excellence.
Throughout her research career, Dr. Landis has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of nervous system development. She has garnered many honors, is an elected fellow of the Institute of Medicine, the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Neurological Association, and in 2002 was elected President of the Society for Neuroscience.
As NINDS Director, Dr. Landis oversees an annual budget of $1.5 billion that supports research by investigators in public and private institutions across the country, as well as by scientists working in its intramural program. She co-chairs the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, which has provided a roadmap for neuroscience-related research among 16 NIH Institutes.
Alan Leshner, Ph.D.
Dr. Leshner is Chief Executive Officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Executive Publisher of the journal Science. Before coming to AAAS, Dr. Leshner was Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). He has also been Deputy Director and Acting Director of the National Institute of Mental Health and joined NIMH from the National Science Foundation (NSF), where he held a variety of senior positions, focusing on the biological, behavioral and social sciences, science policy and science education. Dr. Leshner is the author of a textbook on the relationship between hormones and behavior, and has published over 150 papers on the biology of behavior, science and technology policy, science education, and public engagement with science.
Dr. Leshner is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and Vice- Chair of its governing Council. He was appointed to the National Science Board by President Bush in 2004 and reappointed by President Obama in 2011.
Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer — hailed as “an important new thinker” by The Los Angeles Times — is the author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist and the instant bestseller, How We Decide. His forthcoming book, Imagine: How Creativity Works, is set for release in March 2012.
Lehrer has been called “something of a popular science prodigy,” by The New York Times, a man of “considerable talents.” A graduate of Columbia University with a degree in neuroscience, Jonah Lehrer studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar where he received his master’s degree in 20th century literature and philosophy. Lehrer is a contributing editor at Wired magazine and National Public Radio’s Radio Lab. He has also written for The New Yorker, Nature, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Nora Volkow, M.D.
Nora D. Volkow, M.D., is Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Volkow’s work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a disease of the human brain. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD and the behavioral changes that occur with aging.
Dr. Volkow 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.
Dr. Volkow has published more than 440 peer-reviewed articles, 75 book chapters and has also edited three books on the use of neuroimaging in studying mental and addictive disorders. She was recently named one of Time magazine’s “Top 100 People Who Shape our World,” and was included as one of the 20 people to watch by Newsweek magazine in its “Who’s Next in 2007” feature. She was also included in Washingtonian magazine’s 2009 list of the “100 Most Powerful Women” and named “Innovator of the Year” by U.S. News & World Report in 2000.
