When I first met Dr. Josh Gordon at my family’s Music Festival for Brain Health in 2010, I was struck not only by his research proposal’s innovation and potential, but also by his kind, comfortable manner and competence. Dr. Gordon, then a Columbia University Associate Professor and psychiatrist, had just been selected as one of One Mind’s Rising Star Award winners for that year. One Mind’s Scientific Advisory Board had chosen him for the award for his pioneering research proposal, to build an understanding of how specific genetic mutations relevant to schizophrenia and anxiety affected behavior in what was then a highly original way: by studying the electrical patterns of activity that linked brain regions in functional circuits. His talk at that event was clear, engaging and well-received, and I looked forward to watching his progress even then.
When I interviewed Dr. Gordon for my Brain Waves webcast in 2012, his enthusiasm for the future of neuropsychiatry infected me with even more faith in the power of well-directed science and technology to improve the human experience. In that interview he spoke of how he had used One Mind funding to delineate how brain regions such as the amygdala, the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex “talk” to each other as animals learn and unlearn fears. Soon, that research would earn him two follow-on grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Now, look what he has accomplished! Dr. Gordon has just recently been appointed Director of the NIMH!
All of us at One Mind are excited for Dr. Gordon and have high hopes for where he will lead the U.S. in brain health research. We look forward to continuing our partnerships with both Josh and the NIMH to nurture the careers of young Rising Star neuroscientists as they aspire to more amazing breakthroughs for the benefit of folks who, like me, have been touched by brain health conditions.
–Brandon Staglin, One Mind Director of Marketing Communications, Board Director
Read the NIH press release about Dr. Gordon’s appointment as NIMH Director