Miami-based Deborah Mash is nationally recognized as a leading researcher in the fields of addiction neurobiology, genomics, small molecular development, and psychedelic medicine. As a neuroscientist, lecturer and inventor, Deborah has dedicated her research career to studies of the human brain and behavior. She is nationally recognized for her work in the fields of
neuroscience and brain disorders, contributing to more than 300 published studies and monographs investigating drug addiction, neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. She has held uninterrupted funding from the National Institutes of Health for her research program since 1987, and she was chosen one of Miami’s 101 Top Women by Miami Metro Magazine for her commitment to health care and medical research. In 2002, she received the National Parkinson’s Foundation Leadership Award and the Alzheimer’s Association Medical Honoree Annual Award. She launched the Miami site of the Veterans Administration National Brain Bank consortium for research on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Deborah is the CEO and scientific founder of DemeRx, Inc, a clinical stage company advancing two lead drug candidates as medication-assisted therapies for substance use disorders. DemeRx Inc. received the Swedish American Life Science Summit, Rising Star Award in 2018, for addressing the unmet need for better addiction medicines. Deborah received her Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology from the University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. She completed a fellowship in Neurology and Neuroanatomy at Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. She left Boston to join the faculty in the department of
Neurology at the University of Miami School of Medicine in 1987. She rose through the ranks to tenured Professor and held the Jeanne C. Levey Chair in Neurology from 1996 until she retired in 2018, as Professor Emerita of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology.
She is an adjunct faculty member at the Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Allopathic Medicine at Nova Southeastern University. Her community service at the state and local levels included four elected terms as Commissioner of the City of North Bay Village. She served on the Health Council of South Florida and the Miami-Dade County Healthcare Task Force among other leaderships roles in local government and non-profit agencies. Deborah currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Cure Addiction Now, a non-profit dedicated to the understanding, treatment, and ultimate cure of substance use disorders by funding cutting-edge research.