Huda Akil, Ph.D., University of Michigan, and the co-Director of the Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Insitute. Dr. Akil has made seminal contributions to the understanding of the neurobiology of emotions, including pain, anxiety, depression and substance abuse. Early on, she focused on the role of the endorphins and their receptors in pain and stress responsiveness.  Dr. Akil‘s scientific contributions have been recognized with numerous honors and awards. These include the Pacesetter Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in 1993, and with Dr. Stanley Watson, the Pasarow Award for Neuroscience Research in 1994. In 1998, she received the Sachar Award from Columbia University and the Bristol Myers Squibb Unrestricted Research Funds Award. Dr. Akil is the past President of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (1998) and the past President of the Society for Neuroscience (2004), the largest neuroscience organization in the world that includes over 35,000 members. She was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2000. In 1994, she was elected to the membership of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences and is currently a member of its Council. More recently (2004), she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.