Ann Graybiel joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) faculty in 1973, where she is a member of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and an institute professor, the highest academic award at MIT. In 2001, she was appointed investigator at the McGovern Institute and was named a recipient of the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest science and technology honor. In 2002, Graybiel was awarded the James R. Killian Faculty Achievement Award, which recognizes extraordinary professional accomplishment by full-time members of the MIT faculty. In 2004, she received the Woman Leader of Parkinson’s Science award from the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, and in 2006, she was named the Harold S. Diamond Professor by the National Parkinson Foundation in recognition of her contributions to the understanding and treatment of Parkinson’s disease. In 2012, she shared the Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, and in 2018, she received the Gruber Prize in Neuroscience. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Graybiel studies the basal ganglia, forebrain structures that are important for normal brain function and are also implicated in Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction. Graybiel’s work is uncovering neural deficits related to these disorders, as well as the role that the basal ganglia play in guiding behavior.