Beatriz Luna, PhD, and Mary Phillips, MD, MD (Cantab) Are Elected Members of the National Academy of Medicine

The Department of Psychiatry is pleased to announce that two faculty members, Beatriz Luna, PhD, and Mary Phillips, MD, MD (Cantab), have been elected to membership of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). Election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors in the fields of health and medicine and recognizes individuals who have demonstrated outstanding professional achievement and commitment to service. New members were announced at the Academy’s annual meeting on October 21, 2024.

Beatriz Luna, PhD (Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology, Bioengineering and Radiology, and Staunton Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry)
Dr. Luna is an internationally recognized developmental neuroscientist, a leader in the study of the neural basis of cognitive development. Dr. Luna established a model of normative adolescent neurocognitive development, identifying neural mechanisms of plasticity supporting the specialization into adulthood of cognitive and motivational systems. Her important findings around brain immaturity in adolescence informed Dr. Luna’s contribution to an American Medical Association’s brief to the US Supreme Court. In addition, Dr. Luna has served as founder and president of the FLUX Society for Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, an international professional society dedicated to advancing the understanding of human brain development.

Mary Phillips, MD, MD (Cantab) (Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, and Bioengineering, and Pittsburgh Foundation-Emmerling Endowed Chair in Psychotic Disorders)
Dr. Phillips is an international leader in affective neuroscience, specifically in the identification of neural correlates that underlie altered emotion processing in people with mood disorders. Her ground-breaking research, which combines multimodal imaging with novel computational and translational studies of neurobiological processes predisposing to bipolar disorder and depression, has revolutionized this area of research. She has identified biomarkers reflecting these processes to help improve early diagnosis and risk identification in youth, and guide novel neuromodulation treatment developments to improve mental health and functional outcomes for these disorders.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Luna and Dr. Phillips!