Huda Akil, Ph.D., University of Michigan
August 15, 2013
“When I was growing up in Damascus, the notion that a little Syrian girl could become a scientist seemed like an impossible dream,” she wrote in a commentary for the Washington Times. But the little girl with the big dream is now internationally renowned Huda Akil, Ph.D., Gardner C. Quarton Professor of Neurosciences in Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School and co-director and senior research professor at the university’s Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute.
A pioneer of what is now called systems neuroscience, Dr. Akil has made seminal contributions to the understanding of the neurobiology of emotions and the interplay between pain, anxiety, depression, stress, and substance abuse. “Dr. Huda Akil’s scientific work has transformed our understanding of the molecular, anatomical, and behavioral mechanisms of emotionality,” said James O. Woolliscroft, M.D., dean and Lyle C. Roll Professor of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.