Yale NAMI Conference on Neuroscience, Mental Health and Society

The annual Yale-NAMI Conference on Neuroscience, Mental Health and Society will be held Saturday morning, May 9, at The Anlyan Center Auditorium, 300 Cedar St., New Haven.

The Yale-NAMI conference, held each Spring since 1992, provides an opportunity for community members, patients and their families, and providers to come together and hear about new advances in the care for mental illness from Yale experts and community partners.

In addition to highlighting the cutting-edge developments pioneered by Yale, we will also award the 2026 Yale Department of Psychiatry Mental Health Advocacy Award to Steven E. Hyman, MD, core institute member and director of the Program in Brain Health at the Broad Institute. Dr. Hyman served as director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at Broad Institute from 2012 to 2024, and was provost at Harvard University from 2001 to 2011. From 1996 to 2001 he was director of the U.S National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where he invested in neuroscience and emerging genomic technologies and initiated a series of large clinical effectiveness trials to inform practice.

The Mental Health Advocacy Award has been presented by the Department of Psychiatry every year since 2006 and, in most years, is announced at the spring Conference. Winners of this award are celebrated for their important impact on treatment, research, reduction of stigma, and enhancement of the wellbeing of those with mental illness through their advocacy, political action, and sharing of their own lived experience.

The event is sponsored by the Yale Department of Psychiatry, the Connecticut chapter of the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), and Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health.