|
|
|
|
|
|
People
Meet the Provost
Steven E. Hyman, MD assumed the role of Provost of Harvard University in December, 2001 and also serves as Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School.
A leading scholar at the intersection of molecular neuroscience, molecular biology, and psychiatry, Dr. Hyman returned to Harvard after serving as the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 1996 to 2001. As a component of the National Institutes of Health, NIMH is charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental illness. Hyman's tenure there was marked by intensified efforts to bring molecular biology, genetics, neuroscience, and behavioral science all to bear, in integrated ways, on the understanding of mental illness and mental health.
Dr. Hyman graduated from Yale College summa cum laude in philosophy and the humanities, in 1974. As a Mellon fellow in philosophy of science, he received B.A. (first class honors) and M.A. degrees from the University of Cambridge in 1976. He received his MD from Harvard Medical School (cum laude) in 1980. Following an internship in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a residency in psychiatry at McLean Hospital, and a clinical fellowship in neurology at MGH, he was postdoctoral fellow at Harvard in molecular biology. At McLean Hospital and MGH, graduating residents selected him as Best Teacher four times.
Dr. Hyman was Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Director of Psychiatry Research at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1992 until he left for NIMH in 1996. His laboratory focused on mechanisms by which the neurotransmitter dopamine produced long-term changes in brain function by the regulating the expression of genes. This research was relevant both to understanding addiction, and to understanding how therapeutic psychotropic drugs produced their beneficial effects.
He also taught neurobiology at Harvard Medical School both to medical and graduate students and was the first faculty Director of Harvard University's Interfaculty Initiative in Mind, Brain, and Behavior from 1994 to 1996.
He has authored more than 100 research articles and reviews and has coauthored several widely used basic and clinical textbooks, the most recent being Molecular Neuropharmacology: Foundation for Clinical Neuroscience (2001).
Among his honors, Dr. Hyman is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He also has received awards for public service from the U. S. Government and from patient advocacy groups such as the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the National Mental Health Association. Across the country and over the world, he has lectured on topics ranging from genes, brain, and behavior to the stigma of mental illness.
Dr. Hyman is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the American College of Psychiatrists. He has served on scientific advisory boards nationally and internationally including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Riken Brain Sciences Institute in Japan, and the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Germany.
