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William A. Carlezon, Jr., Ph.D.
ACNP President
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January 2026 Annual Meeting: President's Plenary, Distinguished Lecture, and Teaching Day
This year's President's Plenary, Brain-Periphery Interactions in the Diagnosis, Treatment, and Study of Neuropsychiatric Illness, will be presented on Monday, January 12th at 8:00am Eastern.
This year's Distinguished Lecture, Digital Tools for Phenotyping and Forecasting Outcomes Across Species, will be presented on Tuesday, January 13th at 1:00pm Eastern.
This year's Teaching Day, Reaching Out: Success Stories and Lessons Learned, will be presented on Thursday, January 15th at 1:00pm Eastern.
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Embracing Change While Keeping ACNP's Core Values and Culture Front & Center
As ACNP continues to grow, one thing remains constant—our commitment to fostering a strong, inclusive community of the best brain and behavior scientists in the world. Change can be tricky (and let’s be honest, sometimes confusing), but it’s also how we evolve, refine our processes, and keep our culture vibrant and connected.
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Sarah Timm, CAE, CMP-HC
ACNP Executive Director
| | The Director's Notes contain important changes for the January 2027 Annual Meeting that impacts members. | | January 2026 Annual Meeting Information | | This year's annual meeting will be held in a hybrid meeting format allowing members and invited guests to attend in-person at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort or virtually on the ACNP Virtual Meeting Platform. The in-person option will include the classic ACNP Annual Meeting experience. The plenaries, panels, mini-panels, and study groups will not be live streamed this year as they have been in past years but will be recorded with content posted within 48 hours after the session with the presenter’s approval. Virtual attendees will not be able to participate in the in-person poster sessions; however, the e-poster gallery will be available for the duration of the meeting. | | Click here to read the Annual Meeting Frequently Asked Questions! | |
Annual Meeting Badges
*IMPORTANT*
To continue to strive for sustainability for the Annual Meeting, the College will not mail name badges to attendees in advance of the meeting this year.
Please plan to visit registration early with your photo ID to pick up your name badge.
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Annual Meeting
Social Offsetting
ACNP has partnered with SocialOffset to offer meeting attendees the opportunity to contribute to local organizations in Nassau, Bahamas that make a difference in people’s lives. We invite you to use this campaign to offset any tax spending in the Bahamas that does not align with your values by supporting local charities that do.
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Annual Meeting
Carbon Offsetting
The ACNP Council has agreed to offset the carbon footprint for the January 2026 Annual Meeting for each in-person attendee. A donation will be made to the below charities. Stay tuned, post-conference for more information on the donation amount.
One Tree Planted: One Tree Planted wants to make it simple for anyone to help the environment by planting trees. Together, we can restore forests, create habitats to increase biodiversity, and make a positive social impact across the world.
charity: water: charity: water is a nonprofit organization bringing clean and safe water to people around the world.
| | | | 2026 Nominating Committee | | |
We are pleased to announce the following individuals have been selected to the 2026 Nominating Committee:
Joshua Gordon, M.D., Ph.D., Chair
Katherine Burdick, Ph.D.
Tony George, M.D.
Suzanne Haber, Ph.D.
Ellen Leibenluft, M.D.
Gerard Sanacora, M.D., Ph.D.
The 2025 committee chair, Marina Wolf, Ph.D., will serve as ex officio to the committee.
| | ACNP Near-Peer Mentorship Program | | The ACNP Near-Peer Mentorship Program is designed to provide mentorship from ACNP member mentors to scientists who identify from disadvantaged backgrounds or geographically underserved areas (those areas and populations with high and/or persistent poverty, including international) who plan to enter or are early career scientists in research fields in and adjacent to neuropsychopharmacology. The program provides education on topics such as career skills, goal setting, negotiating, time management, career life balance, and individualized mentoring relationships. This is an intensive multi-year program that includes monthly one-on-one virtual mentoring, monthly training workshops, onsite orientation at the annual meeting to kick-off the program year, and an in-person half-day mentoring program just prior to the annual meeting to wrap up the program year. | | |
Emmeline Edwards, Ph.D.
Near-Peer Mentoring Task Force Chair
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Janet Clark, Ph.D.
Near-Peer Mentoring Task Force Co-Chair
| | | The 2026 cohort will include 12 mentor/mentee pairs. If you are interested in learning more about the program or applying to it, either as a mentee or a mentor, please contact Jill Bracey in the ACNP Executive Office (jbracey@acnp.org) or visit the Near-Peer Mentorship Program poster during the poster sessions at the ACNP Annual Meeting. | | |
Did you know that all of the Council Minutes are placed on the ACNP Website in the Member's Only section?
Please click here and log-in to read the Council Minutes from 2025 and previous Council Minutes to stay informed on Council discussions and decisions.
| | 2025 New Associate Members | | The College would like to highlight the new 2025 Associate Member Class! | | | | |
William A. Carlezon, Jr., Ph.D.,
Principal Editor
| Meet the DPN Editors during the ACNP Annual Meeting on Tuesday, January 13th from 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Eastern at the journal tables! | | |
Introducing the DPN Deep Dive
In July 2025, NPP-Digital Psychiatry and Neuroscience launched a podcast which summarizes DPN articles in short episodes accessible to a general audience. Each episode of the DPN Deep Dive is generated using Google’s NotebookLM, edited for clarity, and approved by the authors to ensure accuracy. The podcast is produced by DPN’s Social Media Editor, Dr. Sofiya Hupalo. Tune in on YouTube or Spotify.
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Lisa M. Monteggia, Ph.D.
Co-Principal Editor
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Tony P. George, M.D.
Co-Principal Editor
| | | Meet the NPP Editors during the ACNP Annual Meeting on Tuesday, January 13th from 2:30 PM - 3:00 PM Eastern at the journal tables! | | Meet the New NPP Editorial Intern | |
Brianna George, Ph.D.
Dr. George is a postdoctoral fellow at the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Wake Forest University in 2023. Her research focuses on how chronic drug and alcohol exposure alters neuromodulatory systems, such as serotonin and dopamine, and how these changes contribute to negative affect, cognitive impairments, and persistent drug seeking. In addition to serving as the NPP Editorial Intern, she was recognized with an ACNP Travel Award in 2021 and selected as an ACNP-SfN Hill Day Advocacy Ambassador in 2022.
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2026 Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews
Panel Session
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Trajectories of Mental Health and Illness
Across Child and Adolescent Development
Chairs: Sophia Vinogradov, M.D.; Damien Fair, M.Sc., Ph.D.; Chad Sylvester, M.D., Ph.D. & Brenden Tervo-Clemmens, Ph.D.
The ACNP panel session for Neuropsychopharmacology Reviews will be held on Tuesday, January 13, 2026, 9:00AM - 11:00AM Eastern Time.
A wide range of exciting research has shown that psychiatric illnesses are developmental in nature and that they evolve from a choreography of genetic, neural, psychosocial, and environmental influences that interact dynamically over time. This dynamism underscores the importance of protective, compensatory, and resilience factors that can come into play across a continuum of potential intervention windows to preempt the expression of a serious mental illness.
| | Check out the latest NPP Podcast! | | |
BrainPod is the podcast from an official journal of the ACNP, Neuropsychopharmacology, produced in association with Nature Publishing Group. Join us as we delve into the latest basic and clinical research that advance our understanding of the brain and behavior, featuring highlighted content from a top journal in fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, and pharmacology.
Older and wiser? The neural correlates of worry induction and reappraisal in older adults - October 27, 2025
| | 2026 Associate Members on Council | | |
Congratulations to the
2026 Associate Members on Council!
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Andrea Goldstein-Piekarski, Ph.D.
Stanford University
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Hilary Marusak, Ph.D.
Wayne State University
| | | Scientific Communications Committee | | |
Interview with Fellow Member, John Krystal, M.D.
Interviewed by Judith Ford, Ph.D., Senior Leaders Advising on Careers Committee Member on behalf of the Scientific Communications Committee
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2025/2026 ACNP/AMP BRAD Fellow!
Rachel Puralewski, B.S., Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Wisconsin - Madison
David Jentsch, Ph.D., Animal Research Committee Chair, interviewed Dr. Puralewski on her plans for the fellowship.
| | What is the ACNP/AMP BRAD Fellowship? | | "Translational Conversations: From Model to Medicine" | |
| |  | Dr. Rachel Puralewski, the 2025-2026 BRAD Fellow, is looking for animal and clinical researchers to participate in her fellowship project, a web-based video series called “Translational Conversations: From Model to Medicine”. Each episode (to be filmed/recorded virtually via video-call based platforms) will be a 30-minute conversation, facilitated by Dr. Puralewski, between one animal and one clinical researcher who study similar topics as they discuss the unique contributions of their approach and the critical interplay of both approaches to making important advances in the field that lead to novel treatments and improvement of patient outcomes. General questions to stimulate each episode’s discussion will be provided ahead of recording. Episodes will be published online and shared on multiple platforms (hosted on the BRAD website; shared via BRAD social media, ACNP Bulletins/mailing list, and researchers own social media/lab webpages, etc.) increasing visibility of participating researchers and their labs amongst the public, peers/colleagues, ACNP leaders, potential collaborators, and future students or staff.
Inquiring clinical-focused and animal-based researchers/scientists should reach out to Dr. Puralewski directly at puralewski@wisc.edu to express their own interest, suggest other researchers who may be a good fit, and/or include any questions they have about the project and their participation. Initial inquiries do not require a commitment to participate. Dr. Puralewski is happy to address all questions or concerns (via email or call) prior to committing to an episode recording. We look forward to creating an informative and engaging web-series highlighting important scientists and their exciting research!
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Inventing the Future:
Brain-Inspired Next-Generation
Artifical Intelligence
Congressional Briefing
On September 10, 2025, the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus (CNC), in cooperation with the American Brain Coalition, American Academy of Neurology, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Simons Foundation, and Society for Neuroscience, hosted a virtual briefing to highlight how foundational neuroscience research informs the development of brain-inspired artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, how public-private partnerships can accelerate progress, and the potential of next-generation AI to advance human health.
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Psychedelics in Brain Health:
From Promise to Practice
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM Eastern
Virtual Webinar
This panel discussion will explore the future of psychedelic medicine as these therapies move closer to FDA approval and clinical adoption. The session will bring together leading voices from science, clinical care, policy, and patient advocacy to examine the opportunities and challenges of integrating psychedelic treatments into our healthcare system. Discussion will span the latest pre-clinical and clinical data, regulatory considerations, access questions, and the broader societal shifts needed to ensure these therapies are delivered equitably and responsibly.
Click Here to Register
| | Research!America Advocacy Training | | |
As part of ACNP’s support for the Americans for Medical Research Campaign, our members are invited to the second of two special virtual training sessions held by Research!America focused on communicating the value of medical research to the public and to policymakers.
The upcoming session, which is taking place over Zoom on December 4, 2025 from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern, is designed to equip you with the tools to engage policymakers and communicate the value of research effectively. It will cover advocacy fundamentals, communicating science to lawmakers, and what works (and doesn’t) in advocacy outreach. Be sure to bring your insights and questions!
Click Here to Register
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January 12-15, 2026: ACNP 64th Annual Meeting, Nassau, Bahamas
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April 2026: Travel Award Applications Open
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Late April 2026: Submissions of Overall Propsals by Chairs (Panels, Mini-Panels, and Study Group) Open
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2025 Advocacy Efforts:
To see a list of current advocacy efforts in 2025, please click below:
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Upcoming Meetings:
To see a list of upcoming meetings in the field of neuropsychopharmacology, please click below:
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Employment and Grant Opportunities:
To see a list of new employment and grant opportunities in the field of neuropsychopharmacology, please click below:
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Top Things You Likely Did Not Know About Sarah Timm, CAE, CMP-HC, Executive Director
1. She has a fear of underwater creatures and clowns.
2. Fearlessly will drive anywhere in the world, car or vespa.
| | | For a full listing of the ACNP Staff in the Executive Office, click here. | | Candidate Biomarkers and Biological Factors Recommendation Form Survey | |
The Future DSM Biomarkers and Biological Factors Subcommittee with the American Psychiatric Association is surveying the field to learn about potential candidate biomarkers and other biological factors involved in psychiatric disorders. The APA values your expertise in this area and welcome your input and suggestions. Please access the form by clicking here to submit your candidate Biomarker or Biological factor which includes relevant definitions. | |
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The call for nominations for the 2026 ALBA-Roche Prize for Excellence in Neuroscience Research is now open. The prize recognizes mid-career neuroscientists who have demonstrated outstanding achievements in neuroscience relative to opportunity, highlighting originality, independence, and research that offers potential for improving understanding of the causal mechanisms of brain diseases. They particularly celebrate exceptional contributions to neuroscience that emerge from non-linear or unusual career paths, resilient, and inspirational scientific journeys.
Eligibility Highlights:
- Open to active scientists worldwide with a Ph.D. (M.D./Ph.D. not eligible).
- Mid-career neuroscientist with demonstrated independence. Proven track record of innovative, influential work supported by high-quality independent publications.
- Unconventional trajectories are welcome; time-in-role or career stage is assessed relative to opportunity.
The deadline to apply is January 20, 2026. Click here to learn more.
| | The American College of Psychiatrists - Winter Awards | |
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The American College of Psychiatrists honors leaders in mental healthcare by recognizing those individuals responsible for advancing psychiatry through their service, research, clinical work, and educational activities. The following awards are presented during the Annual Meeting.
Winter Awards DEADLINE for 2027: January 5, 2026
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The Award for Leadership in Child, Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry recognizes an individual who has made sustained and substantial contributions to child, adolescent and young adult mental health as evidenced by leadership in scholarly contributions, clinical service, education, and/or advocacy efforts. In addition to receiving a grant and a certificate, the awardee delivers a featured lecture at the Annual Meeting.
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The Award for Research in Geriatric Psychiatry is given to an individual who has contributed to advances in geropsychiatry. In addition to receiving a grant and a certificate, the awardee delivers a featured lecture at the Annual Meeting.
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The Stanley Dean Award for Research in Schizophrenia honors an individual or a group that has made a major contribution to the understanding and treatment of schizophrenic disorders. In addition to receiving a grant and a certificate, the awardee delivers a featured lecture at the Annual Meeting.
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The Award for Research in Mood Disorders is given to an individual who has advanced the understanding and treatment of mood disorders. In addition to receiving a grant and a certificate, the awardee delivers a featured lecture at the Annual Meeting.
To learn more about these honors, or to nominate a colleague, please visit The College website: http://www.acpsych.org/awards.
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