Harvard’s Leah Somerville to Receive the Troland Research Award From the National Academies of Sciences

Leah Somerville, a professor of psychology at Harvard University has been selected to receive the Troland Research Award from the National Academies of Sciences.

Professor Somerville, who leads the Affective Neuroscience & Development Laboratory, was awarded the $75,000 annual prize to support her pioneering research on how brain and psychological development are intertwined during adolescence. The laboratory uses a combination of behavioral, neuroscientific, and psychophysiological techniques to understand how the brain develops during adolescence and how that brain development relates to typical changes in motivation, decision making, emotion, and risk for psychiatric illness.

“I am humbled and honored to receive the Troland Award,” Professor Somerville said. “It reflects the impactful work of the many amazing trainees I have worked with over the last several years.”

Dr. Somerville joined the faculty at Harvard University in 2012 as an assistant professor and was promoted to full professor in 2019. She is a summa cum laude graduate of the University of Wisconsin and earned a Ph.D. in psychology at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.