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ISPNE 2023 Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement Award
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Jonathan Seckl, PhD
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Professor Jonathan Seckl trained in medicine at University College London. After a number of busy medical training posts in London, he undertook a PhD at Imperial College studying how the brain controls stress hormones. He then joined the University of Edinburgh and has been a consultant physician in Edinburgh since 1989, first at the Western General Hospital and for the last decade at the Royal Infirmary. He was made Professor of Endocrinology in 1996 and was elected to the Moncrieff-Arnott Chair of Molecular Medicine in 1997.
Professor Seckl's clinical work focuses on endocrinology. He has particular expertise in disorders of the hypothalamus (notably diabetes insipidus), pituitary and adrenal glands and has an interest in the genetics and molecular basis of endocrine disorders.
In research, Professor Seckl has worked for 30 years on the hormonal underpinnings of stress, the role of glucocorticoid hormones and their metabolism in understanding how events before birth 'programme' the risks of later disorders of the brain and body, on new approaches to understand and treat age-associated disorders of memory and how glucocorticoid hormones may cause obesity and metabolic disease. More than 40 doctors and scientists have completed PhDs in his laboratory. He has written over 400 papers and is one of Scotland's most cited medical scientists. He has spoken widely at academic meeting, to the press and lay audiences.
In Edinburgh, Professor Seckl set up and led the Molecular Medicine Centre at the Western General Hospital, initiated and led the Centre for the Study of the Ageing Brain, was inaugural Head of the School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, and Executive Dean and Director of Research for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. He is now Vice Principal for Research at the University of Edinburgh. Professor Seckl currently co-chairs grant committees at the Wellcome Trust and the Technology Strategy Board-MRC. He has been elected to the Councils of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Society for Endocrinology. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, the Academy of Medical Sciences and The Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Robert Kumsta, PhDRobert Kumsta was appointed Professor of Biopsychology at the University of Luxemburg in May 2021. He studied psychology at the University of Trier, Germany, and received his Ph.D. in Psychobiology from the University of Trier in 2007. Funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, he joined the MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, to study the effects of severe institutional deprivation in the English and Romanian Adoptees Study. From 2010 until 2013, he held a Research Fellow position at the Laboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology at the University of Freiburg. Since October 2013, Robert Kumsta has been Professor and Chair of Genetic Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum.
One of his major research goals is to establish a better mechanistic understanding of how early psychosocial risk is ‘biologically embedded’ and increases the risk of long term health problems. A particular focus is on the role of stress physiology and the oxytocin system. Furthermore, he is interested in mechanisms of gene-environment interplay and epigenetic processes.
Using a range of methods, including the study of genetic variation, gene expression patterns, epigenetics, multi-comics integration, as well as the characterization of stress physiology, he is trying to understand how genetic and environmental factors work together to shape developmental trajectories and outcomes across the life-span.
Elizabeth A. (Birdie) Shirtcliff, PhD
University of Oregon
Elizabeth A. (Birdie) Shirtcliff, PhD, is a research professor at the University of Oregon and director of the Stress Physiology in Teens (SPIT) laboratory in the Center for Translational Neuroscience. Dr. Shirtcliff received her doctorate in biobehavioral health from Pennsylvania State University and completed postdoctoral training at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in affective neuroscience. In 2023, Dr. Shirtcliff became the editor in chief of the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology and consulting editor for Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology. Dr. Shirtcliff uses a variety of noninvasive tools to investigate the interplay of biological and behavioral factors unfolding across children's lives, especially in adolescence. Dr. Shirtcliff's focus is on hormones because the endocrine system is stress responsive, often mirroring a child's social environment. This interdisciplinary research examines both short-term stress responses, as well as biological changes that can consistently or even permanently change an individual's biology. Dr. Shirtcliff’s interdisciplinary leanings are revealed in this manuscript as it shows collaborative efforts between engineering, neuroscience and social science by exploring Virtual Reality Stressors.