This Sunday, September 14, forty-eight learning institutions in twenty-eight states and provinces will host public forums on progress in mental health research, as part of NARSAD’s Healthy Minds Across America campaign. The meetings span the country, from Boston and New Haven to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, from Minneapolis and Chicago to Birmingham and Houston — and then in Canada from Montreal to Vancouver.

The roster of speakers is extraordinary. It includes such names as Yvette Sheline, a neuroimaging specialist; Helen Mayberg, a pioneer in deep brain simulation; Fred Volkmar, an authority on autism; Ronald Duman, a leading neurophysiologist; Eliot Gershon, a groundbreaking geneticist; and Sol Snyder a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Eric Kandel, a Nobel winner. The dozens of experts I have omitted are equally eminent. These free events are a generous gift, of a chance to learn from the superstars.