Thomas Insel, M.D.

Dr. Insel is Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the component of the National Institutes of Health charged with generating the knowledge needed to understand, treat, and prevent mental disorders. With a budget of over $1.4 billion, the NIMH leads the nation’s research on disorders that affect an estimated 44 million Americans, including one in five children.

Immediately prior to his appointment as Director, which marks his return to NIMH after an 8-year hiatus, Dr. Insel was Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University. There, he was founding director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, one of the largest science and technology centers funded by the National Science Foundation and, concurrently, director of an NIH-funded Center for Autism Research. From 1994 to 1999, he was Director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Atlanta. While at Emory, Dr. Insel continued the line of research he had initiated at NIMH studying the neurobiology of complex social behaviors in animals. Early in his NIMH research career, which extended from 1979 to 1994, Dr. Insel conducted clinical research on obsessive-compulsive disorder, conducting some of the first treatment trials for OCD using the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) class of medications. He has published over 200 scientific articles and four books, including the Neurobiology of Parental Care (with Michael Numan) in 2003.

Dr. Insel has served on numerous academic, scientific, and professional committees, including 10 editorial boards. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and is a recipient of several awards [A. E. Bennett Award from the Society for Biological Psychiatry, Curt Richter Prize from the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology, Outstanding Service Award from the U.S. Public Health Service, and a Distinguished Investigator Award from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD)]. Dr. Insel graduated from the combined B.A./M.D. program at Boston University in 1974. He did his internship at Berkshire Medical Center, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and his residency at the Langley Porter Neuropsychiatric Institute at the University of California, San Francisco.