Victoria Arango

Victoria Arango is an American neuroscientist who until 2017, was a Professor of Clinical Neurobiology (in Psychiatry) in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. She was the Director of the Diane Goldberg Laboratory for the Molecular Imaging of Neural Disorders (MIND) and the Laboratory of Chemical Neuroanatomy. She was also the Associate Director of the Division of Molecular Imaging and Neuropathology at the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Arango pioneered anatomical studies in the brain of suicide decedents, including biochemical, molecular and morphometric studies and her work was instrumental in bringing the utmost in scientific rigor to studies in postmortem human brain. These efforts have led to new findings and long-standing collaborations with leaders of the field. Her work has focused on identifying brain biological abnormalities in mood disorders, suicide and alcoholism. Arango serves on the Scientific Advisory Board and the Grants Review Committee for the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention and is a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Society of Biological Psychiatry, Society for Neuroscience, International Academy of Suicide Research, and American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry. Arango received NIH funding to study suicide for over 30 years. She has published extensively in respected national and international journals and is considered an international expert in the field of the biology of suicide. She received the Research Award by the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention and the coveted Morselli Medal, a life achievement award for the study of suicide.

She is the current President of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, a Council Member of the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Since 2017, she is the Chief of the Central-Peripheral Interactions Pathophysiology Program in the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Mental Health.