The 2019 Aubrey Lewis Award goes to Marta Garrido

Associate Professor Marta Garrido has received the 2019 Aubrey Lewis Award from the Biological Psychiatry Australia Society. Biological Psychiatry Australia is a newly formed society for professionals interested in the advancement of biological research in psychiatry.

Sir Aubrey Julian Lewis was the first Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, and is recognised as being a driving force behind the flowering of British psychiatry after World War II. Aubrey Lewis became recognised as a leader, educator and administrator and is credited with moulding the Institute of Psychiatry into a model of scientific research and teaching attracting many of the most promising medical graduates from around the world. He is also credited with raising the profile of psychiatry worldwide, through his work as an adviser to general medical bodies, national and international research councils, and political organizations.

Each year, the award is given to an outstanding early- to mid-career researcher, and they are selected to give a lecture in Sir Aubrey Julian Lewis’s honour. Associate Professor Marta Garrido leads the Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry Laboratory at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, at The University of Melbourne, and is Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Integrative Brain Function. Marta received her PhD in 2008 from University College London and did postdocs at University California Los Angeles and back at University College London. In 2013 she moved to the Queensland Brain Institute, at the University of Queensland, on a Discovery Early Career Researcher Award where she later established her independent laboratory. In mid-2019 the lab moved to the University of Melbourne. Marta’s team uses a combination of brain imaging techniques and computational modelling to understand the neural underpinnings of learning and decision making both in typical individuals as well as in people with psychiatric disorders.

Marta will present her lecture at the Biological Psychiatry Australia conference on 27th-29th October 2019 at the Melbourne Brain Centre.

Congratulations Marta!