Prof. Dana M Small, PhD

FormerMember of the International Faculty

Professor of  Psychiatry, Yale Medical School and Deputy Director of the John B  Pierce Laboratory

Dana M Small is Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Yale Medical School and Associate Fellow at the John B Pierce Laboratory. She received her PhD in Clinical Neuropsychology in 2001 from McGill University, Canada.

Dana joined the John B. Pierce Laboratory in June, 2004. She received her MSc in Neuroscience in 1998 and her PhD in Clinical Psychology in 2001 from McGill University. Dana received the Ajinomoto Award for Research in Gustation in 2003, the Moskowitz Jacobs Award for Research Excellence in the Psychophysics of Taste and Smell in 2005, the Firmenich Flavor and Fragrance Science Award in 2007 for her work on taste-odor integration, and the Ruth Pike Award in 2010 for contributions to nutrition research. Currently, Dana serves on the Executive Committee for the Association of Chemoreception Sciences and is a board member of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior. She is on the Editorial Boards of Molecular Metabolism, Chemosensory Perception, Neuroimage: Clinical, and Frontiers of Human Neuroscience. Her lab is funded by NIAA, NIDDK, NIDCD and NCI. She is also honored to have been included as an expert muggle scientist in the book “The Science Behind Harry Potter” by Roger Highfield. 

Her work is directed toward understanding the neural mechanisms underlying taste, flavor, and feeding in the human brain using neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and psychophysics methodologies in healthy and disordered populations. A major focus of current work is to understand how the modern food environment interacts with central and peripheral physiology to promote weight gain. The collaboration with Professor Brüning will focus on identifying individuals at genetic risk for the negative impact of high fat diets on brain function.