Robert Desimone is director of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and the Doris and Don Berkey Professor in MIT’s Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Prior to joining the McGovern Institute in 2004, he was director of the Intramural Research Program at the National Institutes of Mental Health, the largest mental health research center in the world. Desimone has a doctorate in neuroscience from Princeton University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a recipient of numerous awards, including the Troland Prize of the National Academy of Sciences and the Golden Brain Award of the Minerva Foundation. His own research is directed at how the brain pays attention and the development of new animal models for psychiatric disorders.