Kay M. Tye Awarded the Freedman Prize From the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation

Kay M. Tye, the Whitehead Career Development Assistant Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, received the 2016 Freedman Prize for Exceptional Basic Research from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

Dr. Tye was honored for her project “Identifying Unique Neural Circuits for Anxiety Control.” She explains that “anxiety can be thought of as a pathological imbalance in the motivation to avoid anticipated threats relative to the motivation to seek out potential rewards.” Her research seeks to identify brain pathways that are involved in anxiety disorders so that drug therapies can be more precise and avoid unwanted side effects.

Dr. Tye joined the faculty at MIT in 2012 after conducting postdoctoral research at Stanford University. She holds a bachelor’s degree in brain and cognitive Sciences from MIT. Dr. Tye earned a Ph.D. in 2008 at the University of California, San Francisco.