Hanna Damásio

Hanna Damasio is Dana Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology and Neurology at the University of Southern California where she directs the Dornsife Neuroimaging Center. She is also an adjunct professor at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California. Until 2005, she was a Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, where she directed the Human Neuroanatomy and Neuroimaging Laboratory. Using computerized tomography and magnetic resonance scanning, she developed methods of investigating human brain structure and studied functions such as language, memory, and emotion, using both the lesion method and functional neuroimaging. This work resulted in numerous scientific articles which appeared in leading journals. In 1989, she published "Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology" (Oxford University Press), a classic textbook for which she received the Prize for Outstanding Book of the Year in Bio and Medical Sciences from the Association of American Publishers. Her continued interest in human neuroanatomy led her to develop the first atlas of the human brain based on computer tomography images: "Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images", also published by Oxford University Press. The book is a recognized reference now in its second edition.

Damasio received an M.D. from the University of Lisbon Medical School in 1969, where she also trained in Neurology. She began her studies in cognitive neuroscience with Norman Geschwind at the Aphasia Research Center, in Boston.

She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Neurological Association. In 2004, she shared the Signoret Prize in cognitive neuroscience for pioneering work in social cognition. In 2010 she was a co-recipient of the Cozzarelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, attributed to the best article in behavioral neuroscience published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2009. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Lisbon and Aachen. She is married to Antonio Damasio, an internationally-renowned neurologist and expert in the relationship between emotion and cognition, with whom she co-directs the Brain and Creativity Institute at US

In the spare time she does not have, she is a sculptor.

Selected Books and Articles

External links