2022 ISPNE Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement award: Stress, from molecules to societies

Abstract

The International Society for Psychoneuroendocrinology meeting in Chicago in 2022 was thrilled to recognize Dr. Robert Sapolsky with the Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement award. This is the second year for the award to be named to honor Bruce McEwen and it marks the completion of a special issue edited by Blazej Miziak and Robert Paul Juster in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology dedicated to Bruce's legacy and the unfathomable contribution of Allostatic Load to the stress field. Yet, as our award winner writes, Bruce's legacy is more than scientific as he was well known for mentorship and being an exemplary person, theorist, and scientist. Perhaps understandably for a career favored by humble introverts and shy reclusives, the science shines in the spotlight and personal reflections are cut to accommodate word count limits. For scholars entering the field, stargazing at larger than life luminaries in the field is thrilling yet intimidating as it feels impossible that these experts have the same doubts and distractions as the rest of us primates. Thus, Psychoneuroendocrinology is thrilled to kick off the first perspectives piece in the Cell to Selves series with Dr. Robert Sapolsky sharing that, like his Baboon troops in Kenya, he too sometimes has a bad-hair day. This paper is a written version of a lecture I gave on September 8th, 2022, when receiving the first Bruce McEwen Lifetime Achievement Award from the ISPNE. This was a bittersweet honor; Bruce was my graduate advisor at Rockefeller University and over the next forty years, he was my mentor, teacher and father figure. His death in 2020 left a hole in my life.