SOBP Fall 2025 Newsletter

Letter From the SOBP President

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

It’s that time of year- spooky Halloween decorations, pumpkin spice lattes, and submission deadlines for the SOBP 2026 meeting! I am so excited about the wonderful program we have planned for our 81st annual meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, in New York City. I believe the theme of our 2026 meeting - “Building Better Brains: From Synapses to Societies” is particularly important right now because it captures the urgent need to connect advances in molecular and circuit-level neuroscience with their broader implications for mental health, education, and societal well-being in an era of increasingly rapid technological and social change. I particularly love the SOBP meeting for its commitment to inclusive excellence, and to fostering the next generation of leaders in biological psychiatry. Please submit your newest work – we would love to see you in New York this Spring!

Important Deadlines for the Annual Meeting

Honorific Awards

Nominations for our prestigious honorific awards are due by October 24th, 2025. These awards recognize outstanding contributions to the field and are a highlight of our annual meeting. Please nominate a colleague!

Symposia and Travel Award Submissions - closed

This year we received a record number of applications for symposia and travel awards! Notifications will be sent in early November and mid-December, respectively.

Poster and Oral Submissions: The deadline for submitting poster and oral presentation abstracts is November 21st, 2025. We invite you to submit your innovative ideas to stimulate discussion and collaboration among attendees.

Special Projects : SOBP is looking for ideas and initiatives to serve our members and meeting attendees. The Society has set aside money each year to fund these initiatives. Submissions are now open through October 24, 2025.

And please make sure to check out our high-impact papers in the three Society Journals: Biological Psychiatry , Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging and Biological Psychiatry: Global Open Science. Stay tuned for the latest Synapse Spotlight, coming soon from our Communications Committee. Click here to join the mailing list!

Thank you so much for your continued support and engagement with the Society of Biological Psychiatry. I am eager to hear your ideas and comments, which you can share with me by emailing president@sobp.org.

Warmest wishes for the fall season,

Carrie Bearden, PhD

President, Society of Biological Psychiatry

Honorific Awards

The Society is pleased to offer six honorific awards to be presented at the 2025 Annual Meeting. Please click on the following links to learn more about each award. The deadline is October 24, 2025.

The honorific awards of the Society of Biological Psychiatry have long been a hallmark of excellence, recognizing the remarkable contributions of brilliant scientists and clinicians who have advanced the field of biological psychiatry. Over the years, the Society has proudly bestowed these prestigious honors on a diverse group of recipients, each of whom has left an indelible mark on the field.

HUMANITARIAN AWARD

To recognize service and advocacy for mental illness.

GOLD MEDAL AWARD

To recognize significant and sustained work that advances and extends knowledge in biological psychiatry.

GEORGE N. THOMPSON AWARD

To honor members of the Society who have given outstanding service to promote the welfare of the organization.

A.E. BENNETT BASIC RESEARCH AWARD

To recognize basic research in biological psychiatry by young investigators.

A.E. BENNETT CLINICAL/TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH AWARD

To recognize clinical/translational research in biological psychiatry by young investigators.

EDUCATOR AWARD

To recognize outstanding teachers and their endeavors to promote and disseminate the understanding of biological psychiatry at the local, national or international levels.

Click here to submit!

Conference Submissions

Don't miss the opportunity to contribute to the annual meeting. Posters, oral presentations, and symposia are the lifeblood of our meeting, offering a dynamic platform for sharing cutting-edge research, fostering collaboration, and sparking innovative discussions that shape the future of our field. Your contributions are vital to the success of the meeting, providing the diverse perspectives and scientific insights that make our annual gathering an essential event for the global biological psychiatry community.

Proposals for oral and poster presentations will be accepted until November 21, 2025. Click here for more details.

Special Project Funding

The Society of Biological Psychiatry is looking for ideas and initiatives to serve its members and meeting attendees. The Society has set aside money each year to fund these initiatives. The purpose of this form is to collect ideas from SOBP members for initiatives or programs that would fill a need for the field or the Society and be funded by the Society. Please note that these funds are not meant to support research initiatives, but rather enhance the SOBP, further its mission, and involve members. A Special Projects Funding proposal should describe how it relates to SOBP’s strategic plan and how it will further the mission of SOBP. Preliminary reviews of the submissions will take place in early fall, follow up information may be requested of the submitters. Final selections will be made by Council in December 2024. Programs that are selected will be contacted by the Office and Council to begin planning.

The deadline to submit is October 24th, 2025. Click here to submit.

Author Spotlight - Dr. Jessica Hazelton

Here we had the chance to learn from Dr. Jessica Hazelton about her work recently published in Biological Psychiatry. Dr. Hazelton is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Sidney, Australia, and the Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) . Her recent paper took a transdiagnostic approach to asking about the neurobiological bases underlying the social cognition, emotional, and interoceptive deficits underlying neurodegenerative diseases.

Click here to read the full interview.

Brought to you by the CAWL Committee.

Interviewed by Jessica Turner, PhD.

SOBP MEMBERSHIP

Membership has its benefits! Don't forget to renew your 2026 SOBP Membership by logging into the SOBP website, updating your profile and pay your membership dues.

Benefits of membership include:

All members can register for the Society of Biological Psychiatry’s Annual Meeting at the reduced registration fee. This represents a significant savings from the full-cost, non-member registration fee.
Reduced abstract submission fee of $0 vs $40 for non-members.
All members will receive a subscription to Biological Psychiatry, the official publication of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, and online subscription to the new journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. This is a $798 value!
Leadership opportunities on committees.
Sponsorship of abstracts or member applications.
Access to members-only on-line tools.
Recognition and affiliation with a premier organization.
Networking and professional development.

SOBP Publications