John Mazziotta has had a distinguished career of leadership, scientific achievement and service to the neuroscientific community. Scientifically, he has helped transform our understanding of diseases of the nervous system through the use of neuroimaging. These strategies and insights have greatly advanced our basic understanding of disease mechanisms, diagnostic criteria and the manner by which one can track conventional and experimental therapies.

Dr. Mazziotta has had a leadership role in describing what has now become our understanding of the disruption of normal functional brain networks in a wide range of neurological disorders. Having had a strong leadership role in national societies and organizations as well as university governance, Dr. Mazziotta established the first Brain Mapping Center at UCLA that included all of the methods available to study human brain structure and function. He is now the Chair of one of the largest neurology departments in the United States which last year achieved the distinguished position of being first in NIH research funding. As the chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the American Academy of Neurology, Dr. Mazziotta transformed the program, invigorated its presentations and integrated basic and clinical neuroscience. This format and his innovations remain in place years after his influence began. As Editor-In-Chief of the journal NeuroImage, he and his co-editors took this fledgling publication to a position that dominates the field, with an impact factor that has been as high as nine in recent years. Adept at organizing and managing large national and international groups, he has been instrumental in organizing large symposia, consortia and task forces that have advanced both clinical and basic neuroscience.

Since beginning this work, Dr. Mazziotta has published more than 243 research papers and eight texts. He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Oldendorf Award from the American Society of Neuroimaging, the S. Weir Mitchell Award, the Wartenberg Prize of the American Academy of Neurology, the Von Hevesy Prize from the International Society of Nuclear Medicine, and the 1996 Medical Science Award from the UCLA Medical Alumni Association. Dr. Mazziotta has been president and a founding member of the Institute for Clinical PET (positron emission tomography), the past chair of the Scientific Issues and Program Committee of the American Academy of Neurology, the past president of the American Neuroimaging Society and the President of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. Dr. Mazziotta was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and the Royal College of Physicians.

Dr. Avidan is currently Associate Professor of Neurology at UCLA where he serves as Director of the Neurology Residency Program, Associate Director of the Sleep Disorders Program and Director of the Neurology Clinic.

Dr. Avidan received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from UCLA and then attended Medical School at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences where he also obtained a Master of Public Health. He subsequently completed his neurology Residency at the Georgetown University Medical Center, where he was Chief Resident. After residency, he completed a Fellowship in Clinical Neurophysiology and Sleep Disorders at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.

In 1999, Dr. Avidan joined the University of Michigan where he was Assistant Professor, Director of the Sleep Disorders Clinic and chair of resident education in the Department of Neurology. Dr. Avidan was Principal Investigator of a National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute, NIH, Sleep Academic Award which helped him develop a number of educational modules for teaching sleep topics. He has guest edited two issues of Seminars in Neurology on Sleep, and had coauthored "Handbook of Sleep Medicine" and "Review of Sleep Medicine."

Dr. Avidan has developed expertise in sleep disorders in the older person. His research interests are in the field of geriatrics sleep medicine, insomnia and sleep and fatigue management in residency training. His clinical interests include management of insomnia, sleep disordered breathing, restless legs syndrome, circadian rhythm disorders, and hypersomnia.

Dr. Alexander is a neurologist whose primary clinical focus is rehabilitation neurology. Currently, he is an Associate Clinical Professor at the UCLA School of Medicine, Department of Neurology and the Medical Director of the Acute Rehabilitation Unit, Skilled Nursing Unit, and Physical Medicine at Good Samaritan Hospital. An honors graduate both of Amherst College, with a major in Neuroscience, and the University of Minnesota Medical School, Dr. Alexander was an intern in Medicine at University Hospital in Boston, and a resident in Neurology at the Neurological Institute of New York at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Alexander has board certification from the American Board of Neurology and Psychiatry in Neurology and in Vascular Neurology. In addition he has board certification from the American Board of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation with sub-specialty certification in spinal cord medicine. Dr. Alexander's undergraduate thesis was in amphibian visual physiology, and his research interests include the use of botulinum toxin in spasticity, novel antidepressants for post-stroke depression, and the use of acupuncture in stroke rehabilitation, and NIH sponsored research on gait training post-stroke. As an expert panel member, Dr. Alexander developed the Post-Stroke Rehabilitation: Clinical Practice Guideline, with support from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR), and is Co-Chair of the Veteran's Administration/ Department of Defense Clinical Practice Guidelines for Stroke Rehabilitation. He is a Fellow of the Stroke Council of the American Heart Association, a former site-surveyor for the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, and prior member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Neurorehabilitation.

Dr. Carmichael is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He has an active research interest and laboratory studies in neural repair after stroke and other forms of brain injury. These research projects aim to determine the molecular and cellular mechanisms of axonal sprouting and stem cell responses after stroke, and how these two processes of neuronal regeneration lead to repair of damaged brain circuits. Dr. Carmichael also attends on the Neurorehabilitation and Stroke services at UCLA Medical Center, and has an outpatient clinic in Stroke, Neurorehabilitation and General Neurology. Dr. Carmichael obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. degree from Washington University School of Medicine. His Ph.D. work determined the structural and connectional organization of the prefrontal cortex in primates, and how these circuits are involved in affective disorders in humans. He completed a neurology residency at Washington University School of Medicine and then a postdoctoral research and clinical fellowship in neural repair and neurorehabilitation with Drs. Marie-Francoise Chesselet and Bruce Dobkin. This work was recognized by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, and produced novel data on how brain injury triggers the formation of new connections with partially damaged brain areas. Currently, Dr. Carmichael's laboratory is using newly developed cellular and molecular approaches, including laser capture microdissection, microarray analysis and real-time quantitative RT-PCR, to determine the molecular components of a neuronal growth program in the adult cortex after stroke, and the cellular and molecular mechanisms of neural stem cell responses and neuroblast migration in the brain after stroke.