Eric R. Kandel, M.D., is University Professor at Columbia; Kavli Professor and Director, Kavli Institute for Brain Science; Co-Director, Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behaviour Institute; and an Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is an editor of Principles of Neural Science, the standard textbook in the field.

His book The Age of Insight won the Kreisky Award in Literature, Austria's highest literary award. Kandel has received 23 honorary degrees, is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences as well as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London. He has been recognized with the Albert Lasker Award, the National Medal of Science, and the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 2000.