NIH 1998 Almanac/The Organization/NIMH/
National Institute of Mental Health : Biographical Sketch of NIMH Director
Steven E. Hyman, M.D.
Dr. Hyman was appointed NIMH director in April 1996. Born on July 25, 1952, in New York
City, he received a B.A. from Yale in 1974, an M.A. from the University of Cambridge in
1976, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1980. He was a medical intern at
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a psychiatric resident at McLean Hospital, and a
clinical fellow in medicine and neurology at MGH. He also had 4 years of postdoctoral
training in molecular biology at MGH.
Prior to his NIMH appointment, he was associate professor of psychiatry and
neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and director of psychiatry research at MGH. He also
was director of Harvard University’s interfaculty initiative in mind/brain/behavior.
This program represents an attempt to bring together faculty from Harvard’s diverse
schools to focus on pressing problems related to behavior in the light of modern brain
research.
Dr. Hyman’s research has focused on how drugs of abuse, neurotransmitters, and
cytokines produce long-term changes in brain function by activating or suppressing the
expression of genes within nerve cells. In recent years his main focus has been on brain
regions involved in the control of motivated behavior.
He has published numerous scientific papers and a textbook on molecular biology, and
has authored and edited several clinical textbooks. He serves on the editorial boards of
several scientific journals.
Directors of NIMH
