Dirk Hellhammer Award
ISPNE Dirk Hellhammer Award
The International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology (ISPNE) has awarded the prestigious Curt Richter Award for 40 years to a distinguished line of young investigators in the field of psychoneuroendocrinology.
The Curt Richter Award has now been re-named, to honour our friend and colleague Dirk Hellhammer (1947-2018) who has passed away on the 1st of December 2018. Dirk has been a pioneer of psychoneuroendocrinology, contributing some of most important and enduring progress in our field, from the Trier Social Stress to the characterisation of the cortisol awakening response. Moreover, he headed the society as its president from 2002 to 2005, and received the ISPNE Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. Read more about Dirk here.
The Dirk Hellhammer Award will be given by the Society during the 2021 Virtual Meeting, September 7-9, 2021. The award consists of an honorarium, an award certificate, a plaque, a travel grant of up to US $ 1,000 to attend the meeting, and exemption from membership dues to the Society for three years, which includes a subscription to the Journal. Applicants must be 45 years of age or younger by June 30, 2021. The manuscript must be a report of original, never-published research in basic or clinical psychoneuroendocrinology. It may also be an integrative comprehensive new discussion of the author’s previously published findings. The manuscript should be prepared using the ISPNE Journal (Psychoneuroendocrinology) guidelines for preparation of manuscripts for publication. Following peer review, the manuscript will be automatically submitted for publication in the Journal and the award recipient will present the research at a plenary session during the Annual Meeting. The Dirk Hellhammer Award is sponsored by Elsevier, which underwrites the honorarium and travel expenses for the awardee, as well as providing a year’s complimentary access to ScienceDirect and Scopus. Through these online services, the awardee is able to access all Elsevier journals. ISPNE wishes to thank Elsevier for its continuing support of our Dirk Hellhammer awards program. Applicants should submit a copy of: (a) the manuscript; (b) curriculum vitae with list of publications; (c) and statement from the applicants (no more than one page, single-spaced) describing the applicant’s main achievements and future directions.
The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2021. Applications should be sent via email with “Dirk Hellhammer Award” as the subject line to Professor Carmine Pariante at the following e-mail address: [email protected]
ISPNE 2021 Dirk Hellhammer Award

Dr. Annamaria Cattaneo University of Milan
Dr. Annamaria Cattaneo is Assistant Professor at the University of Milan and she is also heading the Laboratory of Biological Psychiatry, at the IRCCS Fatebenefratelli Institute, where she is coordinating different projects aimed at the identification of early predictors of risk for the development of mood disorders and biomarkers of treatment response. She is particularly interested in evaluating how stress early in life as well as exposure to depression in utero can shape the brain trajectory versus an enhanced vulnerability status. Recently she has also focused the attention on the gut microbiome as link between the environment, the immune system and brain functionality.
She has more than 60 publications in PubMed, leading to SCOPUS H-Index = 30, and more than 2500 citations. Dr Cattaneo received several Awards including the British Psychopharmacology Association Award in July 2017, the Award for Young Investigator Scientist at the ECNP Conference and the Rafaelsen Young Investigator’s Award. She is Member of the CINP Awards Scientific Committee Member; Member of the Scientific Advisory Board Panel, European College of Neuropsychopharmacology; Member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Swiss Consortium on the Gut Microbiota and Alzheimer’s disease, University of Geneva, Switzerland. She has also been Review panel member for ERC grants. Dr Cattaneo is also leading several national and international grants, including a FRRB grant on Depression in pregnancy; a Ministry of Health grant to target the inflammatory system in non-responder patients by using minocycline as adjuvant therapy; H2020 grant (RLINK) on the identification of biomarkers of response to Lithium in patients with Bipolar Disorder and a h2020 grant (EarlyCause) on the identification of mechanisms assciated with exposure to early life stress and with the development of metabolic and mood disorders; an Alzheimer Association grant on the identification of the role of the gut microbiome in influencing the inflammatory system and brain functioning in patients with Alzheimer disease.
Curt Richter Award

ISPNE has awarded the prestigious Curt Richter Award for 40 years to a distinguished line of young investigators in the field of psychoneuroendocrinology. (For a brief narrative CV of Curt Richter published by the National Academy of Sciences, download the PDF document below).
The Curt Richter Award 2020 will be given by the Society during its virtual conference from August 26-28. The award consists of an honorarium, an award certificate, a plaque, and exemption from membership dues to the Society for three years, which includes a subscription to the Journal.
Applicants must be 45 years of age or younger by June 30, 2020. The manuscript must be a report of original, never-published research in basic or clinical psychoneuroendocrinology. It may also be an integrative comprehensive new discussion of the author’s previously published findings. The manuscript should be prepared using the ISPNE Journal (Psychoneuroendocrinology) guidelines for preparation of manuscripts for publication. Following peer review, the manuscript will be automatically submitted for publication in the Journal and the award recipient will present the research at a plenary session during the Annual Meeting.
The Curt Richter Award is sponsored by Elsevier, which underwrites the honorarium and travel expenses for the awardee, as well as providing a year’s complimentary access to ScienceDirect and Scopus. Through these online services, the awardee is able to access all Elsevier journals. ISPNE wishes to thank Elsevier for its continuing support of our Curt Richter awards program.
Applicants should submit a copy of: (a) the manuscript; (b) curriculum vitae with list of publications; (c) letter (no more than one page, single-spaced) describing the applicant’s main achievements and future directions.
The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2020. Applications should be sent via email with “Curt Richter Award” as the subject line to [email protected].
2020: Rachel Hill |
2009: Christian Otte |
1997: Delia Vazquez |
2019: Shannon Gourley |
2008: Jens Pruessner |
1996: Andrew Miller |
2018: Eli Puterman |
2007: Christine Heim |
1995: Rachel Yehuda |
2017: Jason Radley |
2006: Courtney deVries |
1994: Errol de Souza |
2016: Stefan Reber |
2005: Elissa Epel |
1993: Zoltan Sarnyai |
2015: Claudia Buss & Sonja Entringer |
2004: Sonia Lupien |
1992: Owen Wolkowitz |
2014: Katja Wingenfeld |
2003: Carmine Pariante |
1991: Thomas Insel |
2013: Emma Adam |
2002: Rainer Rupprecht |
1989: Elizabeth Hampson |
2012: Rebecca Reynolds |
2001: Serge Rivest |
1987: Fred Turek |
2011: Nicolas Rohleder |
1999: Benno Roozendaal |
1985: Charles Nemeroff |
2010: Firdaus Dhabar |
1998: E Hogervorst |
1984: Philip Gold |
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1980: John Carman |
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