Ted Abel, Ph.D. is the Roy J. Carver Chair in Neuroscience, Director of the Iowa Neuroscience Institute, Interim Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and a Professor of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics in the Carver College of Medicine at the University of Iowa. His laboratory’s focus is on understanding the molecular and cellular basis of learning and memory as well as the study of mouse models of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. Until 2017, he was the Brush Family Professor of Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania where he was Co-Director of the Biological Basis of Behavior Program and directed an NIMH-funded predoctoral training program in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. He has received numerous awards, including the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship, a John Merck Scholars Award, the Daniel X. Freedman Award from NARSAD, and University of Pennsylvania Dean’s Award for Mentorship of Undergraduate Research. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is President of the Molecular and Cellular Cognition Society and he has served as Chair of the Section on Neuroscience of AAAS. Dr. Abel has co-authored over 200 scientific papers, which have been published in journals that include Nature, Science, Cell, Neuron, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Neuroscience. He is Editor-in-Chief of Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. Dr. Abel has served on NSF and NIH grant review panels, and on the Scientific Review Council and the Board of Directors of Cure Autism Now. He has also served as Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of NIMH. A graduate of Swarthmore College, Dr. Abel received his Master of Philosophy in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Marshall Scholar and worked with Nobel Laureate R. Tim Hunt. He received his doctorate from Harvard University, where he worked with Tom Maniatis studying transcriptional regulation. As a postdoctoral fellow, he was a Damon Runyon/Walter Winchell Fellow with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel at Columbia University studying the molecular mechanisms of memory storage. Dr. Abel’s research has been supported by grants from the NIH, NSF, DARPA, the Simons Foundation, DOD, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, HFSP, NARSAD, the Whitehall Foundation and the John Merck Fund.