January 15, 2025

IARS Trustee Emeritus Emery N. Brown, MD, PhD

IARS Trustee Emeritus Emery N. Brown, MD, PhD, was awarded the National Medal of Science during a White House ceremony on January 3, acknowledging and celebrating his significant contributions to science and engineering. This prestigious award is the nation’s highest recognition for scientists and engineers. Over the last 20 years, through his vital research and clinical work, Dr. Brown has made important strides towards understanding the neuroscience of how anesthetics act in the brain to create the states of general anesthesia. His research has fundamentally advanced our understanding of how anesthetics affect the brain and continues to explore new frontiers in patient care. This recent honor further illustrates the significance of his work and career-long dedication to the advancement of research and patient care.

A neuroscientist, statistician, and anesthesiologist, the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School, and Director, Neuroscience Statistic Research Lab at Massachusetts General Hospital, Dr. Brown has been at the forefront of innovations and discoveries with analysis of large and complex data sets. Also, the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he shares this recognition with three MIT colleagues and 23 colleagues across the nation. “This is an enormous pleasure to be recognized by the President with this high honor,” Dr. Brown shared during the ceremony.

This award will no doubt continue to fuel his unwavering focus on applying his signal-processing research to study the neurophysiology of how anesthesia acts in the brain to create altered states of arousal such as sedation and unconsciousness. Dr. Brown aims to use this knowledge of how anesthesia works to gain a deeper understanding of brain function to improve brain health and ultimately enhance anesthesiology patient care.

During the White House awards ceremony, Senior White House science officials including Arati Prabhakar, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and Assistant to the President for Science & Technology, were present to award medals to all the honorees. To cite Dr. Brown’s contributions to science and engineering, the following statement was read to the audience during the White House ceremony: “The National Medal of Science has been awarded to Emery Neal Brown for his revolutionary contributions to neuroscience and anesthesiology. Emery Brown’s neuroscientific approach to understanding anesthesia’s exact impact on the brain has been transformational for relieving patient suffering and has provided a new foundation for how we think about the very thing that makes us human, our consciousness.”

Dr. Brown’s research has led to numerous important discoveries and hold direct implications for improving patient care, including how different anesthetic drugs affect neural networks and can be monitored as a readout of a patient’s state of unconsciousness. Additionally, he has been able to demonstrate how the readings vary based on the patient’s age and medical condition.

In addition to this prestigious award, Dr. Brown has also been recognized with the Gruber Prize in Neuroscience, the Society for Neuroscience’s Swartz Prize in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience, and the Pierre Galletti Prize of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Additionally, he is an elected member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Join IARS in congratulating Dr. Brown on being honored with the National Medal of Science, a much-deserved recognition for his groundbreaking contributions to research, anesthesiology, and patient care.

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