Nora D. Volkow MD

Nora D. Volkow, M.D., is Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health. NIDA is the world’s largest funder of scientific research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction.

Dr. Volkow's work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a brain disorder. As a research psychiatrist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate how substance use affects brain functions. In particular, her studies have documented how changes in the dopamine system affect the functions of brain regions involved with reward and self-control in addiction. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and aging.

Dr. Volkow was born in Mexico and earned her medical degree from the National University of Mexico in Mexico City, where she received the Robins Award for best medical student of her generation. Her psychiatric residency was at New York University, where she earned a Laughlin Fellowship from The American College of Psychiatrists as one of 10 outstanding psychiatric residents in the United States.

Much of her professional career was spent at the Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, where she held several leadership positions, including Director of Nuclear Medicine, Chairman of the Medical Department, and Associate Laboratory Director for Life Sciences. Dr. Volkow was also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Associate Dean of the Medical School at The State University of New York at Stony Brook.