GMHF logo
About the Foundation Programs Board of Directors Foundation Sponsors Contact Us
Board of Directors
News Consumer/Patient Information Find a Geriatric Psychiatrist Resources How to Contribute

 >>

Board of Directors

Board Nominations
Board Members Discuss Challenges and Solutions in Late-Life Mental Health Care

  Martha L. Bruce, MPH, PhD (Chair) Interview
Dr. Bruce is a Professor of Sociology in Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, whose current research focuses on psychosocial risks factors and outcomes of depression in later life, and the relationship between depression and functional disability. Her work on suicidal ideation and depressive symptoms on older primary care patients was published in the March 3, 2004, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
 
  Sanjay Gupta, MD (Vice-Chair)
Dr. Gupta is a Clinical Professor with the University of Buffalo, Department of Psychiatry and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Olean General Hospital in New York. Both a practitioner and researcher, Dr. Gupta’s current projects include the study of older adults with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in residential care and weight gain and metabolic disturbances in patients with severe and persistent psychiatric illness. Dr. Gupta is a member of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry’s Board of Directors.
 
  Frederic C. Blow, PhD (Secretary/Treasurer)
Dr. Blow is the Director of the National VA Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center (SMITREC) at the Department of Veterans Affairs and an Associate Professor and Senior Associate Research Scientist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan. His research interests include serious mental illness, alcohol abuse, older adults, and mental health services research.
 
  Stephen J. Bartels, MD, MS
Dr. Bartels is a Professor of Psychiatry at Dartmouth Medical School and Director of the Aging Services Research Program and Director of the Behavioral Health Policy Institute at the New Hampshire-Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center. He served as a consultant to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health’s Subcommittee on Older Adults. Dr. Bartels is a past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry.
 
  C. Nelson Berigtold, MSW
Mr. Berigtold, of White Hall, Maryland, brings to the GMHF Board personal knowledge of the impact of depression and a wealth of experience gained from more than forty years of various roles in social services, including consultation, evaluation, training, mentoring, volunteer recruitment, and management. Retired from full-time work, Mr. Berigtold enjoys various part-time and volunteer activities. For much of his career, Mr. Berigtold was with Big Brothers Big Sisters, a youth mentoring organization with agencies across the country.
 
  Richard C. Birkel, PhD
Dr. Birkel, a longtime advocate for the mentally ill, is the former executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill and the Lt. Joseph P. Kennedy Institute, a social agency for people with developmental disabilities.
 
  Peggy Eastman
Ms. Eastman, a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C., is the author of Godly Glimpses: Discoveries of the Love That Heals. Ms. Eastman was the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry’s 2002 Images of Aging Communications Award recipient for her article “Up From Depression: Wiser Diagnosis, Better Treatment Offer New Hope,” which appeared in the February 2001 issue of the AARP Bulletin.
 
  Warachal E. Faison, MD
Dr. Faison is the clinical services director for Alzheimer’s research and clinical programs at the Medical University of South Carolina. Dr. Faison’s major areas of interest include depression and psychosis in the elderly, risks and protective factors in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, minority recruitment in clinical trials, behavioral and psychological signs and symptoms of dementia.
 
  Michael B. Friedman, LMSW
Michael Friedman is the chairman of the Geriatric Mental Health Alliance of New York, and has over thirty-five years experience as a mental health clinician, advocate, administrator, and policy maker in New York City and the Hudson Valley. He has served as Director of Network Development, New York Hospital; Regional Director (Deputy Commissioner), NYS Office of Mental Health; Executive Director MHA of Westchester; and Director of Operations of The Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services. He has also served on numerous advocacy and advisory groups, including The Mental Health Action Network, The Children's Justice Taskforce, the NAMIs (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) of New York City and of Westchester, The Coalition of Voluntary Mental Health Agencies and The Greater New York Hospital Association.
 
  Robyn L. Golden, MA, ACSW, LCSW
Ms. Golden is the incoming chair of the Board of Directors of the American Society on Aging and the Director of Older Adult Programs at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. She was a Heinz Legislative Fellow in the office of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York) from September 2003 to September 2004.
 
  Gary J. Kennedy, MD
Dr. Kennedy, a past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, is a geriatric psychiatrist with the Montefiore Medical Center in New York, and specializes in Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, depression, psychopharmacology, and psychosomatic medicine.
 
  Maria D. Llorente, MD
Dr. Llorente is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Miller School of Medicine at the University of Miami School of Medicine, in the division of geriatric psychiatry. She is also the chief of psychiatry for the Miami VA Healthcare System. Her primary research interests are in the area of improving mental health services delivery to the geriatric population, particulary ethnic and racial minority older adults, in both long-term and primary care settings.
 
  Gary S. Moak, MD
Dr. Moak, president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, is the director of the Moak Center for Healthy Aging, a geriatric psychiatry group practice in Westborough, Massachusetts, and a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Moak lectures frequently about geriatric psychiatry, Alzheimer's Disease, nursing home practice and regulatory compliance, geriatric psychiatry practice management, and fraud and abuse prevention.
 
  Burton V. Reifler, MD, MPH
Dr. Reifler is a geriatric psychiatrist and a Professor of Psychiatry at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His areas of expertise include the diagnosis and management of Alzheimer's disease, the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and depression, caregiving, and the development of adult day centers.