Bruce McEwen is Alfred E. Mirsky Professor at The Rockefeller University and head of the Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology. His research in neuroscience has helped to create a new understanding of how the brain changes in structure and function in adult life, as well as during development. His research group's findings have implications for the impact of stress on the brain and understanding abnormalities in human brain function and behavior. Recent work in his lab has shown that acute, or short-term, stress may have beneficial effects on the human immune system, while chronic stress impairs immune function. McEwen is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, served as president of the Society for Neuroscience from 1997 to 1998, and is a past-president of the International Society for Neuroendocrinology.

Jack Gorman is Lieber Professor and vice-chair for research of the Department of Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. His research interests include neuroanatomy and neurotransmitter function in anxiety disorders, the neuroendocrinology of depression and the neurobiology of schizophrenia. Gorman is the winner of the 2001 American Psychiatric Association Research Prize and was named one of the nine best adult psychiatrists in the United States by American Health Magazine. The author of over 300 journal articles and textbook chapters as well as two books for the general audience -- The Essential Guide to Psychiatric Drugs and The Essential Guide to Mental Health -- he also serves as deputy editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Joseph LeDoux is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at New York University's Center for Neural Science, which he joined in 1989. He also is director of the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety, a Manhattan-based, multi-institutional research group sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, focused on understanding human fear and anxiety through basic and clinical research. LeDoux's research is focused on the brain mechanisms of memory and emotion. He is the author of many articles in scholarly journals as well as the books The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life and, this year, Synaptic Self: How Our Brains Become Who We Are.
LeDoux Lab: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/home/ledoux
Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety: http://www.cns.nyu.edu/CNFA

Rachel Yehuda is professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and is director of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division at Mount Sinai and the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She also is one of four executive directors of The New York Times Consortium for Trauma Treatment, founded in response to the events of Sept. 11. Yehuda is an expert in post-traumatic stress and has authored more than 150 articles and edited several books on this topic. She served as a delegate for the first White House Conference on Mental Health in 1999, and is founder and director of the Specialized Treatment Program for Holocaust Survivors and Their Families. She is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and the International Society for Traumatic Stress.

Marylene Cloitre is associate professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, director of The Institute for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress, and director of training in psychology at the Paine Whitney Clinic, New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Cloitre has published widely on the assessment and treatment of post-traumatic stress and other anxiety disorders. She currently is principal investigator on two treatment studies of post-traumatic stress disorder, one for adults and the other for adolescent girls. She is a leader of The New York City Consortium for Trauma Treatment, founded to provide training and treatment in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

David Silbersweig is associate professor of psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he founded and directs the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory with Emily Stern. He also is founding director of Cornell's neuropsychiatry program and Neurology-Psychiatry Dual Residency Program. He also holds an appointment as honorary senior lecturer in the Department of Cognitive Neurology at the Institute of Neurology, Queen Square, London. Silbersweig's research focuses on the development and application of new neuroimaging methods to identify the areas of the brain underlying symptom formation in neuropsychiatric disorders such as hallucinations and delusions in schizophrenia, and tics in Tourette syndrome; the neural substrates of mood and anxiety disorders also are a major focus of study.