APA Awards Accomplishments in Mental Health Care

Through their work in politics, advocacy, or clinical care, individuals and programs honored at APA's 2009 annual meeting in San Francisco have made outstanding contributions to the field of mental health. These are the honorees and the awards they received, as listed in the program of APA's 53rd Convocation of Distinguished Fellows:

William C. Menninger Memorial Convocation Lecture:Abraham Verghese, M.D., professor of theory and practice of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and senior associate chair of the Department of Internal Medicine.

Special Presidential Commendations:Jack Drescher, M.D., a training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College and SUNY-Downstate, past chair of APA's Committee on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues, and past president of New York County District Branch; State Rep. Michael Fisher, vice chair of the Human Services Committee and co-chair of the Mental Health Oversight Committee in the Vermont House of Representatives; Michael Hogan, Ph.D., New York Commissioner of Mental Health; Don Lipsitt, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, chair emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Auburn Hospital, and president of the Institute for Integrated Health Care; John McIntyre, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of Rochester, past APA president, and immediate past chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Unity Health System in Rochester, N.Y.; Robert Muller, president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation; Silvia Olarte, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry and director of the Psychoanalytic Institute at New York Medical College; Mental Health America, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping people lead mentally health lives.

Distinguished Service Award:Leah Dickstein, M.D., M.A., professor emerita at the University of Louisville School of Medicine; Carola Eisenberg, M.D., a former assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, staff psychiatrist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its first female dean for student affairs, the first woman on the MIT Academic Council, and the Dean for Student Affairs at Harvard Medical School; H. Richard Lamb, M.D., university professor of psychiatry at the University of Southern California.

Organizational Distinguished Service Award:Give an Hour, founded in September 2005 by Barbara Van Dahlen Romberg, Ph.D., a psychologist in the Washington, D.C., area. Its mission is to develop national networks of volunteers capable of responding to both acute and chronic conditions that arise within our society by literally giving an hour of their time each week to provide free mental health services. Currently, Give an Hour is dedicated to meeting the mental health needs of the troops and families affected by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

APA/Lilly Resident Research Award:Guarav Jain, M.D., a PGY-1 psychiatry/medical resident at Southern Illinois University; Noah Philip, M.D., a PGY-4 psychiatry resident at Brown University; Theodore Satterthwaite, M.D., M.A., a PGY-3 psychiatry resident at Stanford University; Srijan Sen, M.D., Ph.D., a PGY-4 psychiatry resident at Yale University; Jeffrey Strawn, M.D., a PGY-4 child psychiatry fellow at Cincinnati Childrens' Hospital Medical Center.

Human Rights Award:Robert Okin, M.D., a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine; Mental Disability Rights International, an organization that promotes human rights of people with mental disabilities.

Blanche F. Ittleson Award for Research in Child Psychiatry:Charles Zeanah, Jr., M.D., Sellars-Polchow Professor of Psychiatry, professor of clinical pediatrics, and vice chair for child and adolescent psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at Tulane University School of Medicine.

APIRE/Kempf Fund Award for Research Development in Psychobiological Psychiatry (mentor):David Lewis, M.D., Endowed Professor of the Translational Neuroscience Program at the University of Pittsburgh and director of the Conte Center for the Neuroscience of Mental Disorders at the National Institute of Mental Health

APIRE/Kempf Fund Award for Research Development in Psychobiological Psychiatry (mentee):David Volk, M.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh.

Agnes Purcell McGavin Award for Distinguished Career Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry:Harold Koplewicz, M.D., director of the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, N.Y., founder and director of the New York University (NYU) Child Study Center, director of the Department of Child and Adolescent psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital Center, and chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NYU Langone Medical Center.

Isaac Ray Award:John Bradford, M.D., associate chief of the Integrated Forensic Program of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, head of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry, a professor in the School of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, and a professor of psychiatry at Queens University.

Jack Weinberg Memorial Award for Geriatric Psychiatry:Bruce Pollock, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, the Sandra A. Rotman Chair in Neuropsychiatry at the Rotman Research Institute, professor and head of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh.

APA Administrative Psychiatry Award Lecture:Lloyd Sederer, M.D., medical director of the New York State Office of Mental Health.

APA Simon Bolivar Award Lecture:Margarita Alegria, Ph.D., director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at the Cambridge Health Alliance.

APA John Fryer Award Lecture:The Honorable Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco.

APA Solomon Carter Fuller Award Lecture:Bankole Johnson, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences and a professor in the departments of neuroscience and medicine at the University of Virginia.

AAPL/APA Manfred S. Guttmacher Award Lecture:Alan Felthous, M.D., professor and director of forensic psychiatry in the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry at Saint Louis University School of Medicine; Henning Sass, M.D., medical director and chair of the board of directors at the University Hospital of the University of Technology in Aachen/Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany.

APA Judd Marmor Award Lecture:C. Robert Cloninger, M.D., Wallace Renard Professor of Psychiatry, professor of psychology and genetics, director of the Sansone Family Center for Well-Being at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and scientific director of the Anthropedia Institute.

APA Adolf Meyer Award Lecture:Marc Schuckit, M.D., director of the Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program at the VA San Diego Healthcare System.

APA Oskar Pfister Award Lecture:Kenneth Pargament, Ph.D., a professor of clinical psychology at Bowling Green State University.

APA Award for Research in Psychiatry:Dwight Evans, M.D., the Ruth Meltzer Professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and a professor of psychiatry, medicine, and neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

APA Kun-Po Soo Award Lecture:Edmond Pi, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at the College of Medicine at Charles Drew University of Medicine, and the University of California at Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine.

APA Alexandra Symonds Award Lecture:Surinder Nand, M.D., a professor of clinical psychiatry and associate director of psychiatry residency training in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

APA George Tarjan Award Lecture:Nyapati Rao, M.D., M.S., a professor of clinical psychiatry at SUNY-Downstate Medical Center and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Nassau University Medical Center.

APA/NIMH Vestermark Psychiatry Educator Award Lecture:Victor Reus, M.D., a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine and an investigator at the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior at the Program for Pharmacogenomics.

APA/AACDP Research Mentorship Award:James Leckman, M.D., director of research for the Yale University Child Study Center and Neison Harris Professor of Child Psychiatry, Psychiatry, Psychology, and Pediatrics at Yale University.

APA/AstraZeneca Young Minds in Psychiatry International Awards Program:Manpreet Singh, M.D., M.S., a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Pediatric Bipolar Disorders Program and Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research; Aristotle Voineskos, M.D., a fellow at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

APIRE/Lilly Psychiatric Research Fellowship:Ann Shinn, M.D., M.P.H., a PGY-4 resident in the MGH/McLean adult psychiatry residency program in Boston; Ragy Girgis, M.D., a PGY-4 resident in psychiatry at Columbia University.

Carol Davis Ethics Award:Mary Jo Fitz-Gerald, M.D., a professor of clinical psychiatry and vice chair for psychiatry education at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, La.

Health Services Research Early Career Award:Michael Compton, M.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Family and Preventative Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine.

Health Services Research Senior Scholar Award:Wilson Compton, M.D., director of the Division of Epidemiology, Services, and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Jacob K. Javits Public Service Award:Rep. Jim Beall, Jr., a member of the California State Assembly and chair of its Committee on Human Services.

Frank J. Menolascino Award for Psychiatric Services for Persons With Mental Retardation/Developmental Disabilities:Christopher McDougle, M.D., Albert Eugene Sterne Professor of Psychiatry and chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Profile of Courage Award:Blair Romer, M.D., who served as staff psychiatrist at the prison hospital at Vacaville, Calif., and fought against the elimination of medical staff, which placed his career in jeopardy.

Jeanne Spurlock, M.D., Minority Fellowship Achievement Award:Stephen McLeod-Bryant, M.D., an associate professor and interim director of the Behavioral Health North Area Clinic at the Medical University of South Carolina. ▪