Advisory Board



Stephen J. Bartels, MD, MS, is Professor of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School, Director of the Aging Services Research Program and Director of the Behavioral Health Policy Institute at the NH-Dartmouth Psychiatry Research Center, and the Medical Director of the State of New Hampshire Division of Behavioral Health.

Dr. Bartels has received many honors and awards, including the Health Services Research Senior Career Award from the American Psychiatric Association Institute for Research and Education in 2003 and the Mental Health and Aging Award from the American Society on Aging in 2005. He served as the expert consultant on the Subcommittee on Older Adults for President Bush's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. He is past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP), where he also served 4 years on the board of directors and was the founding chair of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation. He is currently the Scientific Co-Director for the Older Americans Substance Abuse and Mental Health Technical Assistance Center.

Dr. Bartels’ ongoing research includes "Interventions and Services for Older Adults with Severe Mental Illness" (K24MH66282-NIMH); "Problem Solving Treatment for Primary Care Depression: A Randomized Clinical Trial of the Effectiveness of a Manualized Psychotherapy Intervention for Minor Depression in Primary Care" (MH62322-NIMH); "Rehabilitation and Health Care in Elderly with SMI: Effectiveness of an Intervention Consisting of Skills Training Rehabilitation and Nurse Health Care Case Management in Older Adults With SMI" (MH62324-NIMH); "Prevention of Substance Abuse and Medication Misuse Among Older Adults in Senior Housing" (KD1 SP09291-SAMHSA); and "Use and Costs of Mental Health Services and General Medical Care in Older Adults With Schizophrenia and Affective Illness: The Impact of Medical Comorbidity and Long-term Care" (NARSAD). Dr. Bartels serves on the Interventions Review Committee for NIMH. His commitment to training is evidenced by a recent NIMH K24 award focusing on research and mentoring early career investigators in geriatric mental health services research, as well as his participation as a longstanding faculty member of the Geriatric Psychiatry Summer Research Institute (SRI), membership in the SRI Executive Committee, and participation as a faculty and steering committee member of the Advanced Research Institute (ARI) in Geriatric Mental Health, and participation on the Advisory Board of the Institute for Research Minority Training on Mental Health and Aging (IRMMA). He has been widely published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Psychiatric Services, and other peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Bartels received his MD from the University of Virginia School of Medicine and is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He holds an MS in clinical and evaluative science from Dartmouth Medical School and a BA in English from Amherst College.


Martha L. Bruce, PhD, MPH,  is a Professor of Sociology in Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry, Weill Medical College of Cornell University and in the Clinical Epidemiology Program at the Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and SEQ CHAPTER Associate Vice-Chair for Research, Department of Psychiatry. A trained sociologist and psychiatric epidemiologist, Dr. Bruce conducts community-based observational and intervention studies of the risk, outcomes, and treatment of geriatric depression with a focus on depression’s relationship with disability. She is Principal Investigator of an NIMH-funded Interventions and Practice Research Infrastructure Program award (R24) that works in partnership with community-based agencies to develop research aimed at improving the treatment and outcomes of depression in elderly patients receiving home health services. She is also Director of the Research Methods Core of the Cornell ACISR (P30) for Late-Life Depression and Principal Investigator of a New York State contract to assess adult homes serving elderly adults and adults with chronic and severe mental illness, as well as Principal Investigator of the Cornell subcontract of the NIMH-funded (to the University of Pennsylvania) R01 to investigate the impact of depression treatment on mortality in NIMH-funded, multi-site Prevention of Suicide in Primary Care Elderly: Collaborative Trial (PROSPECT), and Co-Director of the Ithaca-based Cornell Institute for Translation Research on Aging. Currently, Dr. Bruce chairs the NIMH Services Research Review Group (SRV) and is vice-chair (2005-2007) of the Board of Directors of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation.

Dr. Bruce is an active mentor to postdoctoral fellows and junior investigators. She is Principal Investigator of the NIMH/Cornell Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Mental Health (R25), a national program that provides mentoring and consultation to junior investigators during their transition to independent investigator. She is also the Cornell Principal Investigator for the NIMH-funded, Tri-Site Collaborative Training Program (T32) in geriatric mental health services research and Co-Director of Cornell’s NIMH-funded T32 training research program in geriatric psychiatry, is a member of the Executive Committee and Core faculty of the NIMH/UCSD Summer Research Institute, and serves on the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health and Society Scholar’s Program.


Maureen Halpain, MS, is an academic coordinator in the University of California San Diego (USCD) Department of Psychiatry, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry. Ms. Halpain joined UCSD's Geriatric Psychiatry Program in 1991. She is responsible for the administrative functions of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, including management of its research center and the education and training programs. She has served as the manager of the NIMH-funded Summer Research Institute (SRI) in Geriatric Psychiatry since its inception and is largely credited for its successful implementation. Ms. Halpain also serves as the manager of the NIMH-funded Summer Training in Aging Research Topics-Mental Health (START-MH) Program, a national research training program for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students. She has published several papers on training in the field of geriatric mental health.

Ms. Halpain has a master's degree in gerontology with a specialization in health administration and policy from the University of Southern California.


Barry D. Lebowitz, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego and Deputy Director of the Stein Institute for Research on Aging and the Geriatric Psychiatry Research Center at UCSD. Dr. Lebowitz served as the Chief of the Geriatrics Research Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health and an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He was elected a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and an Honorary Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. He is also the Executive Director of the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology. Dr. Lebowitz serves on the editorial boards of a number of scientific and professional journals and is the author of more than 150 books and articles on mental health and aging.

Dr. Lebowitz is a national figure in aging research. Among his many honors are the M. Powell Lawton Award of the Gerontological Society of America, the President’s Award of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and the Earl Usdin Award of the West Coast College of Biological Psychiatry. In 2003, Dr. Lebowitz received the Distinguished Service Award of the International Psychogeriatric Association in recognition of his contributions as a "Mentor of Mentors." The Junior Investigator Award of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry was named in his honor. Dr. Lebowitz has a reputation for promoting the development of new investigators in the field of aging research, having initiated the popular summer workshops for geriatric psychiatry that have attracted many young researchers. He is a graduate of McGill University and Cornell University.


Charles F. Reynolds III, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In addition, he is Senior Associate Dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and directs the Mental Health Intervention Research Center for the Study of Late-Life Mood Disorders at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC). Dr. Reynolds is also the lead investigator on three NIMH-funded Research Training Grants. Before joining the faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in 1980 as Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology, Dr. Reynolds was the Program Director of the Neuropsychiatric Unit at WPIC. Since then, Dr. Reynolds has held academic appointments as Director of the Sleep and Chronobiology Center at WPIC, Director of the Geropsychiatric Research Unit at WPIC, and Associate Director of the General Clinical Research Center of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Reynolds has served as chairman and member of several research review committees at the NIMH.

Dr. Reynolds' bibliography contains over 350 publications in peer-reviewed journals, which he wrote over the past 29 years. The Associate Editor of American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, Dr. Reynolds is also on the Editorial Board of several neuropsychiatric, gerontology and sleep journals including American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience, and Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology.

Dr. Reynolds graduated magna cum laude from the University of Virginia before earning his medical degree from Yale University School of Medicine. He then completed a straight medical internship at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Montreal Neurological Hospital and continued on to postgraduate work in clinical polysomnography, geriatric psychiatry, and clinical electroencephalography at WPIC.


Gwenn Smith, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Senior Research Scientist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital of the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System. She completed her undergraduate training in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and her graduate training in neuropsychology at the City University of New York. She completed postdoctoral training in neuroimaging of neurodegenerative disease at the Aging and Dementia Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, New York University (NYU) School of Medicine and then joined the Schizophrenia Research Program at NYU.

While a faculty member at NYU, Dr. Smith also served as a research collaborator in the Positron Emission Tomography Program, Brookhaven National Laboratory. Her training and research at NYU and Brookhaven focused on the integration of structural and functional neuroimaging methods to evaluate mechanisms of neurodegeneration and the development of methods to evaluate dopamine and acetylcholine modulation by other neurotransmitter systems in vivo. She moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1995, where she served as Principal Investigator of the Functional Brain Imaging Core for the Intervention Research Center in Late-Life Mood Disorders (Charles F. Reynolds III, MD, PI) and as Associate Director of the NIMH training grant Clinical Research Training in Late-Life Mood Disorders (Charles F. Reynolds III, MD, PI). There, she focused on the initial clinical applications of the PET methods for measuring dopamine modulation in vivo in schizophrenia and AD. Dr. Smith moved to the Zucker Hillside Hospital and Center for Neurosciences in 1999, where she has focused on methodology development to evaluate serotonergic function and regulation by other neurotransmitters in schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and geriatric depression and to develop methods to evaluating interactions between the HPA axis and monoamines systems.

Dr. Smith currently serves as co-director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Unit of the Intervention Research Center in Schizophrenia and as Assistant Program Director (Psychiatry) of the General Clinical Research Center. She is a faculty member of the Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Mental Health. Since 1998, Dr. Smith has been supported by an Independent Scientist Award (K02) from the National Institute of Mental Health.


Joel E. Streim, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, where he serves as Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Training Program. Dr. Streim's research, teaching, and clinical efforts reflect his longstanding career interest in the problems of elderly patients with medical and psychiatric comorbidity, with an emphasis on mental health care in the long-term care setting. He has conducted research on treatment of depression in medically ill nursing home patients, and clinical pharmacologic trials for the treatment of cognitive impairment, psychosis, and behavioral disturbances in nursing home residents with dementia. Under the sponsorship of the VA VISN 4 Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), Dr. Streim is currently studying the quality of diabetes care received by aging patients with severe psychiatric illness.

As co-Principal Investigator on a geriatric interdisciplinary training grant at Penn, supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Dr. Streim has been instrumental in developing a curriculum for postdoctoral trainees who are preparing for academic careers in geriatrics. Dr. Streim also serves as a faculty advisor for fellows supported by the VA VISN 4 MIRECC and a T32 grant from the NIMH. As Director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Training Program at Penn, he has mentored more than 30 postdoctoral fellows, a significant number of whom have gone on to successful academic careers.

As a national leader in the field, Dr. Streim has lectured and published extensively on topics in geriatric psychiatry. In addition to his teaching and mentoring activities, he has been a strong advocate for using research to inform mental healthcare policy. He served for many years as Chair of the Public Policy Committee of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, and recently completed a term as President of that organization. During that time, he was a founding Board member of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation. His service to the field has also included consultation to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and the Senate Special Committee on Aging, as well as congressional testimony in support of improved access and quality of mental health services for older adults.

Dr. Streim graduated magna cum laude from Haverford College, with honors in philosophy, and then received his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. After completing a residency in internal medicine at the University of Rochester and a residency in psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, he was a fellow in geriatric psychiatry at the VA Medical Center in Madison, Wisconsin.


Jürgen Unützer, MD, MPH, MA, is Professor and Vice-Chair of Psychiatry at the University of Washington and Chief of Psychiatry Services at the University of Washington Medical Center. He is also an adjunct investigator at the UCLA NPI Center for Health Services Research and a consultant at RAND. His main clinical and research interests are in the delivery of mental health services to older adults in general medical settings. He has authored over 100 publications in peer-reviewed medical journals, and he is internationally recognized as an expert in the treatment of late-life depression in primary care.

Dr. Unützer recently served as a Senior Scientific Advisor to the World Health Organization and an advisor to the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. His recent awards include the Paul Beeson Physician Faculty Scholars Award in Aging Research from the American Foundation for Aging Research and the Gerald L. Klerman Investigator Award from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.

Dr. Unützer’s current research focuses on improving primary care for older adults with depression and chronic pain. He is the principal investigator of Project IMPACT, a multi-site initiative to improve care for late-life depression (www.impact.ucla.edu). A December 2002 report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that the IMPACT model of care doubles the effectiveness of usual care for late-life depression across a wide range of health care organizations.

Dr. Unützer has extensive experience with teaching and mentoring medical students, graduate students, residents, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty members in psychiatry and primary care at the University of Washington, UCLA, and several other academic institutions. In 2002, Dr. Unützer received the Outstanding Research Mentor award from the Department of Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. He serves as mentor and consultant on several career development awards, minority supplements, and other research projects. He also participates, along with Drs. Steven Bartels at Dartmouth and Martha Bruce at Cornell, in the first federally funded postdoctoral training program in geriatric mental health services research.

Dr. Unützer received his MD from Vanderbilt University, his MA in public policy from the University of Chicago, and his MPH in health services from the University of Washington. He completed fellowships in geriatric psychiatry at UCLA and in primary care psychiatry at the University of Washington.