I am a board certified general and forensics clinical psychiatrist in practice for 29 years. My academic and clinical training took place at the University of Paris, in Togo West Africa, and at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington D.C. I am Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University in Washington DC. In addition to my private practice, I have worked in community mental health centers. Over the course of my career, I have provided mental health services to people from all walks of life and across the entire socioeconomic spectrum. I have worked with the homeless in metropolitan Washington D.C., with displaced persons traumatized by natural disasters, and with Physicians for Human Rights assessing the credibility of torture victims seeking political asylum in the U.S. I have also worked as a behavioral profiler at the Central Intelligence Agency performing psychological profiles of world leaders. As a psychiatrist in private practice, I have evaluated and treated individuals, couples and families. I am an expert in evaluating and treating individuals who have experienced trauma.
I frequently am asked to comment as an expert on topics concerning human behavior on national and local television, radio and in publications – both professional and for the public. I have been a guest blogger for the Huffington Post, on topics related to psychology and environmental issues. In 2009, I co-convened one of the first conferences on the psychological effects of climate change, warning that the U.S. mental health system is not prepared. In 2013, I worked with Dr. James Hansen and a number of other experts on a paper entitled Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reductions of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature. (Hansen et al., 2013). This paper set the scientific prescription needed to restore Earth’s energy imbalance and protect the mental health of young people. In the last decade I have given hundreds of presentations on climate change and mental health. I have served on the Maryland Task Force on Energy Policy and The Metropolitan Council of Governments, a multi-state council charged with protecting our climate and environmental health. I have also served on the Advisory Board of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health. I am a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. In May 2018, I received the Distinguished Fellow award of the American Psychiatric Association, its highest membership honor. Over the last several years, I have helped develop youth climate anxiety assessment tools, conducted research and reviewed data in assessing the mental health of young people faced with climate change. In May of 2022 I was honored by the Washington Psychiatric Society, a district branch of the American Psychiatric Association, for my work on climate and mental health.