Marina Picciotto, PhD, Charles B. G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry and professor in the Child Study Center, of neuroscience and of pharmacology, has been elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Picciotto is a longtime member of AAAS, which works to promote science, engineering, and innovation and to represent American researchers in all fields of science.
She is a AAAS Fellow and past chair of the Section V – Neuroscience and has been a fierce advocate for the organization’s mission to advance science.
“The truly interdisciplinary nature of AAAS puts it in a unique position to promote interaction and collaboration across scientific fields as different, but potentially synergistic, as particle physics, chemistry, engineering, biochemistry, and psychology,” she wrote in her statement of candidacy. “Convening scientists across these disciplines, promoting the use of a common scientific language, and identifying innovative sites of intersection will be essential for making scientific progress to address some of the major societal challenges we are currently facing.”
Picciotto joined the Yale faculty in 1995. She holds numerous leadership positions at Yale School of Medicine. She is deputy chair for basic science research and director of the Division of Molecular Psychiatry in the Yale Department of Psychiatry and director of the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, the largest doctoral program in the biological and biomedical sciences at Yale.
She is deputy director of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience at Yale and is a leader in the national and international neuroscience community, serving as editor-in-chief of The Journal of Neuroscience until 2023. She is currently past president of the 35,000-member Society for Neuroscience.
Picciotto has received numerous awards during her career. She was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering by President Clinton and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering.