Emery N. Brown, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has received the 2018 Dickinson Prize in Science from Carnegie Mellon University. The annual award recognizes substantial achievements or sustained progress in the fields of natural sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics.
According to Carnegie Mellon faculty member Dr. Robert E. Kass, Dr. Brown is the “world’s expert on statistical analysis of neuronal data.” In addition to his role at MIT, he also serves as the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and as an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. His experimental research has helped decipher how anesthetic drugs create the state of general anesthesia.
Dr. Brown served on President Barack Obama’s National Institutes of Health Brain Initiative Working Group. He is the recipient of an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the National Institute of Statistical Sciences Jerome Sacks Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Applied Mathematics, and the American Society of Anesthesiologists Excellence in Research Award. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Brown’s outstanding achievements have earned him the distinction of being one of only 21 people, as well as the first and only African American, to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.
Dr. Brown received his bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics from Harvard. He holds a master’s degree and Ph.D. both in statistics and a medical degree from Harvard University.
