Dr. Joaquin M. Fuster was born in Barcelona, Spain, in 1930. Studied medicine at the University of Barcelona. In Barcelona and Innsbruck (Austria), he specialized in psychiatry. In 1957 Fuster emigrated to the United States for a career in neuroscience at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1962-64, he worked as a visiting scientist at the Max-Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich. He received his PhD. in neuroscience at the University of Granada, Spain. Dr. Fuster is Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and a member of the Brain Research Institute and the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the UCLA's School of Medicine.

Dr. Fuster's major honors and awards include: the title of Member of Honor of the Spanish Royal Academy of Medicine (1997); Signoret Prize (Université de La Sorbonne, Paris) (2000); Fyssen International Science Prize (2000); Doctor Honoris Causa, Universidad Miguel Hernández, Alicante, Spain (2003); Goldman-Rakic Prize for Cognitive Neuroscience (NARSAD) (2006); George Miller Prize of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (2006); Doctor Honoris Causa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2008); Geschwind Lecturer, Harvard University (2009); Woolsey Lecturer, University of Wisconsin (2010); Elected Member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2010); Segerfalk Lecturer, University of Lund, Sweden (2010); Doctor Honoris Causa, Universidad Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala (2014). Dr. Fuster is the author of more than 200 articles and 8 books.