Nenad Sestan MD, PhD

Nenad Sestan is a professor of neuroscience, comparative medicine and genetics, and psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and a member of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Zagreb and his Ph.D. in neurobiology from Yale University. Sestan’s research has been concerned with molecular mechanisms involved in the formation of neural circuits in the cerebral cortex, the outer extent of the mammalian brain that processes sensory inputs, commands motor activity, and underlies higher-order cognitive functions. His laboratory also studies how complex developmental processes were modified during human evolution and may become compromised in neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.

He is the recipient of several awards and prizes, including the 2019 Constance Lieber Prize, the 2012 Krieg Cortical Discoverer Award, a NARSAD National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Distinguished Investigator Award awarded by the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and a McDonnell Scholar Award. He is also a member of the National Academy of Medicine (United States), the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the BrainSpan and PsychENCODE consortia. His laboratory’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Simons Foundation, the March of Dimes Foundation, the Whitehall Foundation, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, and the Tourette Syndrome Association.