Prof Zoltán Sarnyai is a medically-trained PhD neuroscientist with an active research program in the neurobiological mechanisms of stress and psychiatric disorders, including drug addiction, schizophrenia and depression. He is currently a Professor at James Cook University.

Prof. Sarnyai was previously University Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Pembroke College, where he was Director of Studies for Medicine. He trained at McLean Hospital at Harvard Medical School and at The Rockefeller University, supported by the DuPont-Warren Award and a NARSAD Young Investigator Award, respectively.

His group described the role of stress neuropeptides oxytocin and corticotropin-releasing factor in addiction, for which he was awarded the Richter Prize by the International Society of Psychoneuroendocrinology and the efficacy of ketogenic diet in preclinical models of schizophrenia.