Aurelio Galli

Aurelio Galli, PhD, is a Vanderbilt University professor of psychiatry who guides the institution's recently created substance abuse neuroscience program, as well as instructs a Neurobiology of Addiction course. Dr. Aurelio Galli provides students with substance abuse certification and he is codirector of outreach efforts focused on educating community members on the risks associated with substance abuse.

Since 2014, Dr. Galli has also engaged with the Vanderbilt Brain Institute as associate director for research strategy and is tasked with creating new programs and classes. His accomplishments include originating the new "Brain, Mind, and Society" series of seminars.

For the past 14 years, Dr. Galli has also served as professor of physiology and undertaken original research into the molecular mechanisms that underlie obesity and drug addiction, as well as working to find the cause or causes of autism at the molecular level. Through the American Heart Association, he received the Lyndon Baines Johnson Research Award for "Outstanding Research." Passionate about the outdoors, Dr. Aurelio Galli manages an extensive old growth forest area and enjoys foraging for mushrooms there that he incorporates into traditional Italian dishes.