Diane Powell, M.D. is an author, public speaker, researcher and practicing psychiatrist. She has spoken in venues that vary from international scientific conferences to news and talk shows ... She feels honored to have trained and worked with some of the best minds of the century, including several Nobel laureates. ... Biophysics and neuroscience captivated her attention as an undergraduate at Ohio State University. While taking classes, she worked in neurochemistry, biophysics and neurophysiology laboratories and published an academic article in neurochemistry. The lab work helped her realize she wanted to understand human consciousness, which meant going into medicine rather than graduate school.
While attending Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, she was taught by giants in their fields. Vernon Mountcastle and Sol Snyder taught her neuroscience and Alan Walker was her anatomy instructor. Hamilton Smith oversaw her microbiology lab. She co-published research on the genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease with Marshal Folstein and did neuroscience research in Joseph Coyle’s laboratory. After receiving her medical degree in 1983, he stayed at Johns Hopkins to complete postdoctoral training in medicine, neurology, and psychiatry.
In January 1987 she trained for six months at The Institute of Psychiatry in London, England with Sir Michael Rutter, who was knighted for his work on autism. In July 1987, Dr. Powell joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School where she taught neuropsychiatry, and gained experience in cross-cultural psychiatry and mind-body medicine. She moved in July 1989 to engage in molecular biology research at the University of California at San Diego during the Human Genome Project.
