Recipient of the 2025 Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom
PAUL MCHUGH
For over fifty years, Paul McHugh has been at the forefront of psychiatric theory and practice. In 1975 he co-published a mental state exam that remains one of the most widely used diagnostic tools in mental health. He was chair of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University from 1975 to 2001, where his research on the neuroscientific foundations of motivated behaviors, psychiatric genetics, epidemiology, and neuropsychiatry undergirded one of the most widely influential schools of thought in his field. Among numerous other honors, he was elected to what is now the National Academy of Medicine in 1992, served on the President’s Council on Bioethics from 2002 to 2009, and has been honored by Johns Hopkins with a named chair and also the creation of the Paul McHugh Program for Human Flourishing.
The Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom exists to uphold the highest standard of integrity in humanity’s pursuit of knowledge by honoring those who demonstrate extraordinary courage in the exercise of intellectual freedom. From his earliest work to today, on issues ranging from repressed memory to sexuality to human cloning, McHugh has inflexibly resisted intense pressures from both the public and his own profession to compromise scientific standards of evidence and analysis. Time and again, his courageous choice to stick to evidence and clear logical thought against popular and professional passions and interests, all of which eventually pass away into unpleasant memories, has singled him out as a model of scholarly integrity.
The Academy was honored to present the 2025 Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom to Dr. Paul McHugh.
