PUBLIC VALUE AWARD 2026
Hanna Damasio & Antonio Damasio
Hanna Damasio M.D. is University Professor, Dana Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Dana and David Dornsife Cognitive Neuroscience Imaging Center at the University of Southern California. Using computerized tomography and magnetic resonance scanning, she has developed methods of investigating human brain structure and studied functions such as language, memory, emotion and feeling, and consciousness, using both the lesion method and functional neuroimaging. Her most recent work focuses on the effects of music training in the developing brain and demonstrates, conclusively, that music has an important influence in cognitive and neural maturation. [Google Scholar H-Index is 118; with 105,801 citations and Web of Science H-Index is 91; with 46,176 citations]
Damasio attended the University of Lisbon Medical School where she also trained in Neurology and Neuroanatomy. Recent articles include Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2024). Sensing, Feeling and Consciousness, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379 (1908), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0243; Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2024) Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(8), 1653-1659, doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02119; Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2023) A Joint Interview of Neuron Special Issue: Neuroscience unbounded, Vol. 111(21), 3337-3340; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2023). Sensing is a far cry from sentience, Animal Sentience, 33(16), DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1805; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2023). Feelings are the Source of Consciousness, Neural Computation, (35)3, 277-286; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2022). Homeostatic Feelings and the Biology of Consciousness, BRAIN, Oxford Academic, Vol. 145; 2231-2235. She is the author of the award-winning Lesion Analysis in Neuropsychology (Oxford University Press), and of Human Brain Anatomy in Computerized Images (also Oxford University Press), the first brain atlas based on computerized imaging data, now in its second edition.
Hanna Damasio is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Neurological Association. She shared the Signoret Prize and the Pessoa Prize with Antonio Damasio, and, among others, holds Honorary Doctorates from the Sorbonne (Université Paris Descartes), the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Universities of Aachen and Lisbon, and the Open University of Catalonia. In January 2011, she was named USC University Professor.
The Center that she directs works closely with the Brain and Creativity Institute.
For more information go to the Dornsife Imaging Center website at https://dornsife.usc.edu/brainimaging and the Brain and Creativity Institute website at https://dornsife.usc.edu/bci/.
Antonio Damasio is Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology and Philosophy, and Director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
Trained as both neurologist and neuroscientist, Damasio has made seminal contributions to the understanding of brain processes underlying affect, decision-making and consciousness. His work has made a major impact in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. He is the author of several hundred scientific articles and is one of the most eminent psychologists of the modern era (see Damasio, A. Feelings and Decisions. In: R. Sternberg, S. Fiske, D. Foss (Eds.), Scientists Making a Difference: One Hundred Eminent Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions, 2016). He is one of the most cited scientists worldwide. [Google Scholar H Index is 175; with 272,963 citations and Web of Science H Index is 102; with 59,438 citations].
Damasio’s recent work addresses the biology of consciousness, the role of life regulation in the generation of cultures, and the development of a new generation of vulnerable robots.
Recent articles include Singer, J. and Damasio, A. (2025). The Physiology of Interoception and Its Adaptive Role in Consciousness, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 380(1939), Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2024). Sensing, Feeling and Consciousness, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379 (1908), https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0243; Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2024) Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(8), 1653-1659, doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn_a_02119; Damasio, H. and Damasio, A. (2023) A Joint Interview of Neuron Special Issue: Neuroscience unbounded, Vol. 111(21), 3337-3340; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2023). Sensing is a far cry from sentience, Animal Sentience, 33(16), DOI: 10.51291/2377-7478.1805; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2023). Feelings are the Source of Consciousness, Neural Computation, (35)3, 277-286; Damasio, A. and Damasio, H. (2022). Homeostatic Feelings and the Biology of Consciousness, BRAIN, Oxford Academic, Vol. 145; 2231-2235; Carvalho, G. and Damasio, A. (2021). Interoception and the Origin of Feelings: A New Synthesis, BioEssays, https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202000261; Vaccaro, A., Kaplan, J., & Damasio, A. (2020). Bittersweet: The Neuroscience of Ambivalent Affect. Perspectives of Psychological Science. 15(5), 1187-1199; Man, K. and Damasio, A. (2019). Homeostasis and Soft Robotics in the Design of Feeling Machines. Nature Machine Intelligence, 1, 446–452. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-019-0103-7.
Damasio’s books include Descartes’ Error, The Feeling of What Happens, Looking for Spinoza, Self Comes to Mind, The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures, and Feeling and Knowing, which are translated worldwide and taught in numerous universities. His new book, Natural Intelligence & The Logic of Consciousness will be published in the US in September 2026 (translations have already been published in France, Portugal and Spain).
Damasio is a member of several academies, among them the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. He has received numerous prizes, among them the Paul MacLean Award for Outstanding Neuroscience Research in Psychosomatic Medicine [2019], the International Freud Medal [2017], the Grawemeyer Award [2014], the Honda Prize [2010], the Prince of Asturias Prize in Science and Technology [2005], the Nonino Prize as Master of Our Time [2003] and the Pessoa Prize [1992].
He holds Honorary Doctorates from leading universities, some shared with his wife Hanna, e.g., the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne [EPFL], 2011 and the Sorbonne [Université Paris Descartes], 2015.
In 2013 the Escola Secundária Antonio Damasio was dedicated in his native Lisbon. From 2016 to February of 2024, Damasio was a member of the Council of State of Portugal. In 2025 he received the Medal of Honor of the City of Lisbon.
