Established in 2004, the Joseph D. Matarazzo lecture series honors Department Founder and Emeritus Professor, Joseph D. Matarazzo, Ph.D.

Past Lectures

Monday, May 12, 2025

Marcelo Wood, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, Department of Neurobiology and Behavior

School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine

"Epigenetics: Pushing the Boundaries of Mechanisms Underlying Memory Formation and Addiction”

Monday, May 6, 2024

Patricia Janak, Ph.D.

Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

"Evaluating and Learning from Rewards"

Monday, May 15, 2023

Anne Churchland, PhD

Professor, Department of Neurobiology, University of California Los Angeles

"Decisions, movements and the brain"

Monday, September 12th, 2022

Suzanne Haber, Ph.D.

Professor, University of Rochester Medical Center

"Circuits linking reward, cognition, and decision-making"

Tuesday, June 4th, 2019

Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D.

Director of the National Institute of Mental Health

"Opportunities and Challenges in Psychiatric Neuroscience"

Monday, April 16, 2018

Rajita Sinha, Ph.D

Yale University

"Neuroscience of Drug & Stress Interactions: Impact on Health & Clinical Outcomes"

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Frans B.M. de Waal, Ph.D.

C.H. Candler Professor of Psychology, Emory University

Director, Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center

Distinguished Professor, University of Utrecht

"Cognitive Continuity: A Kingdom Full of Special Mental Capacities"

Thursday, June 16, 2016

David G. Amaral, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor, University of California, Davis

Beneto Foundation Chair and Director of Research, MIND Institute

"More Luck than Brains. Surprises in the Career of a Behavioral Neuroscientist: Memory, Emotion and Autism"

Monday, May 11, 2015

Marina Wolf, Ph.D.

Professor and Chair, Department of Neuroscience

Chicago Medical School, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

"Synaptic mechanisms maintaining persistent cocaine craving"

Monday, May 5, 2014

Fred H. Gage, Ph.D.

Adler Professor, Laboratory of Genetics

Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disease

The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

"Mobile elements: Generation of behavioral and evolutionary diversity"

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Russell D. Fernald, Ph.D.

Professor of Biology, Benjamin Scott Crocker Professor, Mimi & Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education

Stanford University

"How does social behavior change the brain?"



Tuesday, May 21, 2012

Michael S. Fanselow, PhD

Professor, Department of Psychology, UCLA

Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences

UCLA Integrative Center for Learning & Memory (ICLM)

"Neural circuits that put fear into context"

May 20, 2011

Bob Hitzemann, Joe Robertson, and Dan Dorsa: Introduction



Joe Matarazzo:  1957-61: A New Basic Science and Clinical Department is Born

Ruth Matarazzo:  A New Clinical Service:  From East to West

Arthur Wiens:  My Timeline: Medical Psychology Internship and Residency Program Compendium

Chris Cunningham:  Introduction of a Ph.D. Program in Experimental-Physiological Psychology

Bob Hitzemann:  Behavioral Neuroscience, Present and Future



Special Guest Speaker - R. Adron Harris: Alcohol and the Brain:  Molecules and Mice

Director, Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research

Professor of Neurobiology and Waggoner Chair in Cellular and Molecular Biology

University of Texas at Austin

Tamara Phillips:  Perspectives on Behavioral Genetics



Matt Lattal:  Behavioral Neuroscience Perspectives on Extinction and Memory Erasure

Suzanne Mitchell:  Understanding Impulsive Behavior: Contributions from Behavioral Neuroscience

Monday, May 3, 2010

Bruce McEwen, Ph.D.

Alfred E. Mirsky Professor

The Rockefeller University

"Protective and Damaging Effects of Mediators of Stress and Adaptation: Central Role of the Brain and the Social Environment"

May 4, 2009

Thomas J. Carew, PhD

Bren Professor Chair Department of Neurobiology and Behavior

University of California, Irvine

"How time flies: The molecular architecture of memory"

May 12, 2008

Eric Nestler, M.D., Ph.D.

Lou and Ellen McGinley Distinguished Chair in Psychiatric

Research Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience

University of Texas Southwestern Medical School

"Molecular Mechanisms of Drug Addiction" 

June 7, 2007

Terry E. Robinson, Ph.D.

Elliot S. Valenstein Collegiate Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience

Editor-in-Chief, Behavioural Brain Research

Department of Psychology (Biopsychology Program) The University of Michigan

"Drugs, neuroplasticity, and addiction"  

June 16, 2006

Michela Gallagher, Ph.D.

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University

"The aging brain: One surprise after another" 

May 5, 2005

Barry Everitt, Ph.D., Sc.D.

Experimental Psychology, Downing College, Cambridge University

"Neural psychological mechanisms underlying compulsive drug seeking: Implications for addiction and its treatment" 

May 19, 2004

Susan Bookheimer, Ph.D.

UCLA School of Medicine

"Imaging as phenotype: Functional imaging of genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease"