Nancy C. Andreasen, who holds the Andrew H. Woods Chair of Psychiatry at the Carver College of Medicine of the University of Iowa, received the 2012 Scientific Research Award from the National Alliance of Mental Illness. Professor Andreasen was honored for her work in understanding schizophrenia. She uses magnetic resonance imaging to study the brains of people suffering from mental illness.
Andreasen is a graduate of the University of Nebraska. After earning a Ph.D. in English literature, she joined the faculty at the University of Iowa. She then decided to switch career paths and entered medical school at the University of Iowa and completed her residency in psychiatry in 1973.
Dr. Andreasen is past president of the American Psychopathological Association and the Psychiatric Research Society. In 2000, she was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Bill Clinton. Professor Andreasen is the author of numerous books and textbooks including, The Broken Brain: The Biological Revolution in Psychiatry (Harper, 1983), Brave New Brain: Conquering Mental Illness in the Era of the Genome (Oxford University Press, 2001), and The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius (Dana Press, 2005).