Dr. Jeff Sargent, left, presents Dr. Jeff Conn with the Distinguished Alumnus Award for the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Lee’s Homecoming department breakfast
Dr. Jeff Conn was named the 2015 Distinguished Alumnus of the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department at a breakfast held during Lee University’s Homecoming festivities.
Dr. Conn currently serves as a professor of pharmacology at Vanderbilt University and the founding director of the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery. His current research is focused on the development of novel treatment strategies for schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease, and other serious brain disorders.
Dr. Conn earned his doctorate in pharmacology from Vanderbilt, and a bachelor of psychology from Lee University. He pursued postdoctoral studies at Yale before joining the Department of Pharmacology at Emory University. After 12 years he moved to the position of senior director and head of the Department of Neuroscience at Merck and Company in West Point, Pennsylvania.
“Dr. Jeff Conn is a talented researcher whose work is benefitting the lives of many,” said Dr. Jeffery Sargent, chair of Lee’s Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences. “We are proud to call him one of our own and to honor him with this award.”
Dr. Conn has served as associate editor and editor-in-chief of Molecular Pharmacology and in editorial positions with multiple other international journals. He has served on the scientific advisory boards of multiple foundations and research institutes. He served as chairman of the Neuropharmacology Division of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and on multiple national and international committees.
He has received numerous awards, including the NARSAD (National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders), Essel Distinguished Investigator Award, and the ASPET (American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics) Astellas Award in Translational Pharmacology, among others.
Dr. Conn has also been named to ISI’s (Intercollegiate Studies Institute) Most-Cited Scientists in Pharmacology & Toxicology.