Tom Insel

Dr. Tom Insel is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who joined Verily Life Sciences (formerly Google Life Sciences) in December, 2015. Prior to Verily, Dr. Insel was Director of the National Institute of Mental Health at the NIH from 2002 – 2015. At NIMH he brought the power of genomics and neuroscience to the study of serious mental illness, he launched the Research Domain Criteria project to transform diagnostics and he led an overhaul of the clinical trials program to focus on targets and mechanisms.

During his tenure at NIH, he also served as Chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, co-Chair of the NIH Neuroscience Blueprint, and co-Chair of the NIH BRAIN Initiative. From 2011-2012 he also served as Interim Director of the National Center for Advancing Translational Science. Prior to his NIH service, Dr. Insel was the founding Director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience at Emory University (1999-2002), Director of the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center (1994-1999), and professor in the Emory Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (1994-2002). His research interests have spanned clinical studies of obsessive compulsive disorder (1979-1985), neurobiological studies of the role of oxytocin and vasopressin in complex social behaviors (1983- 2002), and global mental health (2005 – 2015).

He received his BA and MD degrees from the Boston University Combined 6 Year Medical Program (1974) and completed his residency in psychiatry at UCSF (1979). Dr. Insel is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has received numerous honors including an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh (2014).