Dr. Tamminga is a Professor of Psychiatry, Vice Chair for Clinical Research, and Chief of Translational Neuroscience Research in Schizophrenia at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine and holds the Communities Foundation of Texas Chair in Brain Science. There she directs clinical and preclinical research in schizophrenia focused both on understanding disease mechanisms and on developing improved treatments.
Dr. Tamminga graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School in 1971 and completed a Psychiatry Residency at the University of Chicago in 1975. After a Research Fellowship in Psychopharmacology in Chicago, she joined a schizophrenia research team at the NIMH for one year. In 1978, Dr. Tamminga began her faculty appointment at the University of Maryland, MPRC, where she developed the inpatient research programs. In February of 2003, Dr. Tamminga was appointed full professorship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, where she conducts a clinical research laboratory, a human postmortem Brain Collection, and an in vivo Human Imaging Laboratory for normal and schizophrenia research. Dr. Tamminga has been the recipient of numerous federal foundation, and pharmaceutical-funded grants and continues to collaborate with the MPRC.
Dr. Tamminga was a member of an NIMH Extramural Research Review Committee for eleven years. She has been an ad hoc advisor to the NIMH Orphan Drug Program. She is on the Scientific Board of NARSAD and the Scientific Advisory Board for the Stanley Foundation. She has spent several rotations on the FDA Psychopharmacology Advisory Committee, and Chair of that committee from 1991 to 1994 and currently serves as Chair. In 1998 Dr. Tamminga was invited to be a member of the NIDA Board of Scientific Counselors and was elected into the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Tamminga has been the recipient of numerous awards in the field, most recently the University of Maryland Research Lecturer of the Year. She also received the Dean Award for Schizophrenia Research. She is the co-founder of the International Congress on Schizophrenia Research and continues to direct its activities. She has published over 300 papers and two books in the area of psychopharmacology, neuroscience, or schizophrenia. She has lectured nationally and internationally on treatments in schizophrenia and disease pathophysiology.
