Dara Manoach is a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School. She directs the Sleep, Cognition and Neuropsychiatry lab at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH.

Manoach is a neuropsychologist who has devoted her career to understanding the neural bases and nature of cognitive challenges in neurodevelopmental conditions, particularly schizophrenia and autism, so that they can be effectively treated. Her primary research focus is on understanding the contribution of abnormal sleep physiology to memory consolidation deficits and symptoms, developing sensitive physiological biomarkers of sleep-dependent memory consolidation and evaluating targeted treatments. Her tools include multimodal neuroimaging, intracranial studies, non-invasive brain stimulation and polysomnography.

Manoach collaborates with both clinical and basic investigators doing complementary work to forge empirical links in causal chains that lead from risk genes to circuits to fundamental cognitive deficits, symptoms and diagnosis. Her career goals are to mentor the next generation of clinical scientists and to conduct research that substantially expands our understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders, provides insights into pathophysiology and leads to interventions that significantly improve quality of life.

Manoach received her doctorate from Harvard University in experimental psychology, completed a clinical psychology internship at McLean Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship in clinical neuropsychology at Beth Israel Hospital of Harvard Medical School before joining MGH.