The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded Boston College psychology professor Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, with a five-year $2.5 million grant to fund her groundbreaking work on the psychology and neuroscience of emotion. Barrett is one of only 12 recipients in the United States to receive this year's NIH Director's Pioneer Award, which recognizes "exceptionally innovative investigators" whose work holds the promise of conceptual and technological breakthroughs in science, according to NIH. Barrett is the second psychologist to earn the honor.

The grant will further her development of a "conceptual act" model that offers a new view of emotions and their role in mental and physical health.

"I am beyond delighted to receive this award," says Barrett. "It will allow my lab and my collaborators to move forward with several innovative research programs to investigate what are emotions, both as psychological and as natural phenomena."

    —D. Schwartz