Emery N Brown

Background and Education

Emery N. Brown is the Edward Hood Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School; and a practicing anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Brown received his B.A. (magna cum laude) in Applied Mathematics from Harvard College, his M.A. and his Ph.D. in statistics from Harvard University and his M.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Brown is an anesthesiologist-statistician whose experimental research has made important contributions towards understanding the neuroscience of how anesthetics act in the brain to create the states of general anesthesia. In his statistics research he has developed signal processing algorithms to solve important data analysis challenges in neuroscience. His research has been featured on National Public Radio, in Scientific American, Technology Review, the New York Times and in TEDMED 2014

Awards and Honors

• National Medal of Science | 2024
• Gruber Prize in Neuroscience | 2022
• Pierre Galletti Award, AIMBE | 2022
• Swartz Prize for Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience | 2020
• Board of Trustees, Guggenheim Foundation | 2019
• Doctor of Science Honoris Causa, University of Southern California | 2019
• Dickson Prize in Science | 2018
• Member, Florida Inventors Hall of Fame | 2018
• Medaillon Lecture, Institute of Mathematical Statistics | 2017
• Severinghaus Lecture on Translational Science, American Society of Anesthesiologists | 2017
• Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics | 2016
• Fellow, National Academy of Inventors | 2015
• American Society of Anesthesiologists Award for Excellence in Research | 2015
• Member, National Academy of Engineering | 2015
• Guggenheim Fellow in Applied Mathematics | 2015
• Member, National Academy of Sciences | 2014
• NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award | 2012
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences | 2012
• National Institute of Statistical Science, Jerome Sacks Award | 2011
• Fellow, IEEE | 2008
• Member, National Academy of Medicine | 2007
• NIH Director’s Pioneer Award | 2007
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science | 2007
• Fellow, American Statistical Association | 2006
• Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering | 2006
• Member, Association of University Anesthesiologists | 2002