All of us at the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) deeply mourn the loss of our executive director Alies Muskin, who died on September 22 at the age of 59 from complications of breast cancer.
Alies began her career at ADAA in 2001, serving as chief operating officer before being named executive director in 2010. She worked tirelessly to offer hope and to improve the quality of life for the millions of children and adults who suffer from anxiety, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic disorder, bipolar disorder, and other related disorders.
She strongly believed that the sense of shame and stigma about mental health issues that prevent so many from accessing the care they need could change for the better with input from patients, families, loved ones, clinicians, and researchers. “So many people tell us that just knowing that they are not alone is empowering,” she said.
She positioned ADAA as the leading organization in this country dedicated to the prevention, treatment, and cure of these illnesses through education, training, and research, and she never wavered in promoting the message that mental illness is treatable.
Her commitment to improving the lives of affected individuals extended to ensuring that over the years ADAA supported numerous research projects from young and established investigators. “Understanding the basic science,” she said, “gives us hope that advances in neuroscience can impact how we diagnose and treat anxiety and mood disorders.”
In Alies’ eyes, a key element of the ADAA mission was helping improve patient outcomes by promoting scientific innovation, encouraging translation and implementation of research into practice, and providing continuing education of evidence-based treatments across disciplines.
Alies truly wanted to make the world a better place—to make sure that affected individuals had access to the best treatment possible—and she was relentless in her commitment to doing the hard work necessary to make it happen. She was a masterful administrator and advocate, an optimist with a clear-eyed understanding of people and systems, and she moved the organization and the field forward with her incisive intelligence, keen sense of humor, warmth, and boundless energy.
Like all great leaders, Alies raised the game of those around her, and we were all the better for knowing her. The ADAA remains committed to realizing Alies’ vision and following the path she set forth for the future.
Loving survivors in her immediate family include her husband, Alfie Rosenberger; daughters Emily (and her husband Matt Geramita) and Melanie; her brother Philip Muskin, M.D., and his wife, Marlene, and their son, Matthew; and her sister, Marci Muskin, and her husband, Richard Geisenberger, and children, Dana and Harry. ■
You can honor the legacy of Alies Muskin by contributing to a
memorial fund in her name to support the work of the organization that she led so passionately.
