Hail, Good Fellows
Two Emory faculty members—one known for New Testament scholarship and the other for groundbreaking studies in fighting depression—have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and a leading center for independent policy research.
New Testament scholar Carl Holladay and neuroscientist Helen Mayberg are among 228 members elected to the class of 2017.
Holladay, the Charles Howard Candler Professor of New Testament at Candler School of Theology, also is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory Law. His research focuses on Luke-Acts, Hellenistic Judaism, and Christology, and he is the author of eight books, including A Critical Introduction to the New Testament: Interpreting the Message and Meaning of Jesus Christ, which is used extensively by seminaries and ministers, offering historical context as well as an orientation to religious, theological, and ethical issues surrounding Jesus’s message. He is the third Candler faculty member to be elected to the academy in the past six years.
Mayberg is a professor in the Departments of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Radiology at Emory. She holds the Dorothy C. Fuqua Chair in Psychiatric Neuroimaging and Therapeutics, and is cofounder of the Emory Neuromodulation and Technology Innovation Center.
A board-certified neurologist, Mayberg heads a multidisciplinary depression research program dedicated to the study of brain circuits in depression and the effects of various antidepressant treatments measured using a variety of functional and structural imaging tools. The primary focus of the lab is to develop imaging and physiological-based algorithms that will differentiate depressed patient subgroups and optimize treatment selection at all stages of the illness. Imaging findings provided the foundation for development and testing of deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subcallosal cingulate region (Area 25), a novel intervention for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Mayberg is a pioneer in DBS research, which has been heralded as one of the first hypothesis-driven treatment strategies for a major mental illness.
