Profile

Hanna Damasio

Dana Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and Professor of Psychology and Neurology
Co-Director, USC College Brain and Creativity Institute
Director of the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center

Contact Information
E-mail: hdamasio@college.usc.edu
Phone: (213) 821-0731
Office: HNB 126

LINKS
Curriculum Vitae
Dornsife Neuroscience Imaging Center
Brain and Creativity Institute

Biographical Sketch

HANNA DAMASIO, M.D. Hanna Damasio M.D. is Dana Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center at the University of Southern California. 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. Besides her numerous scientific articles she is the author of the award-winning Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology (Oxford University Press), which has been used worldwide in brain-imaging work, and of Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images (also Oxford University Press), the first brain atlas based on computerized imaging data, now in its second edition. Her research has received continuous Federal support for over two decades. Hanna Damasio is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Neurological Association. She recently shared the Signoret Prize in cognitive neuroscience with Antonio Damasio for their pioneering work in social cognition. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Lisbon and Aachen. The Dornsife Imaging Center is dedicated to elucidating the neurobiology of mind and behavior, in health and disease, using state-of-the-art brain imaging technology. The Center works closely with the Brain and Creativity Institute whose activity is aimed at illuminating the brain basis of social behaviors (ranging from moral judgments and communication to economic decisions), normal and pathological cognitive development in children, consciousness, and the processes of creativity in art, science and technology. (For more information go to the Dornsife Imaging Center website at http://brainimaging.usc.edu and the Brain and Creativity Institute website at http://www.usc.edu/bci/)

Education

Honorary Doctorate , University of Aachen
Honorary Doctorate , University of Lisbon
MD , University of Lisbon Medical School, 1/1969

Academic Appointment, Affiliation, and Employment History

Tenure Track Appointments

Dana Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience; Director, Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center; Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Neurology, University of Southern California, 07/01/2005-
Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1985-
Assistant Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1977-
Distinguished Professor, University of Iowa, 01/01/1998-07/01/2005
Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1981-01/01/1985

Non-Tenure Track Appointments

Distinguished Adjunct Professor, University of Iowa, 07/01/2005-
Adjunct Professor, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, Ca, 01/01/1994-
Instructor, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1976-01/01/1977

Other Employment

Co-Director, Division of Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1985-01/01/2004
Director, Laboratory for Neuroimaging and Human Neuroanatomy, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1982-01/01/2004
Director, The Migraine Clinic, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 01/01/1977-01/01/1988
Fellow-Associate, Department of Neurology, University of Iowa, 06/01/1976-10/01/1975

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests

Hanna Damasio pioneered the use of brain imaging methods in the study of brain lesions, such as computerized tomography and nuclear magnetic resonance imaging, which can be used for diagnosing all of the diseases that affect the brain. She is director of the USC Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center. The second edition of Damasio's detailed atlas of the human brain based on computerized images Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images, which is a a standard reference in the field, was published in 2005. Her award-winning book Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology is widely used by neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, psychiatrists, and neuroscientists, as well as, medical and neuroscience students. She is the author of numerous papers on the neuroanatomical substrates of higher brain function.

Honors and Awards

Endowed Chair, Dana Dornsife Chair in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, 2/1/2006-
Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Aachen, 2002-
Listed in Best Doctors in America under Neurology, 2002-
Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Lisbon, 2001-
Named Distinguished Professor, University of Iowa Foundation, 1998-
Prize for Outstanding Book in Bio and Medical Sciences, 1989, from the Professional and Scholarly Book Division of the Association of American Publishers for "Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology", 1998-
Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1997-
Alexander von Humbolt Fellowship Recipient, Order of Santiago da Espada (Grand Oficial), 1995-
Elected to the American Neurological Association, 1995-
Pessoa Prize, 1992-