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Board of Directors

Board Nominations
One Board Member's Story of Depression
Board Members Discuss Challenges and Solutions in Late-Life Mental Health Care

  Sanjay Gupta, MD (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.
 
  Frederic C. Blow, PhD (Vice-Chair)
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.
 
  Maria D. Llorente, MD (Secretary/Treasurer)
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.
 
  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 Executive Director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving and the John and Betty Pope Distinguished Chair in Caregiving at Georgia Southwestern State University. Previously, he served as the 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.
 
  Martha L. Bruce 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.
 
  Christopher C. Colenda, MD, MPH
Dr. Colenda, a past president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, is the dean of the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. Prior to that, he served as professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry at Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine. Dr. Colenda has published over 130 peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, primarily in geriatric mental health services research.
 
  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.
 
    Melinda Lantz, MD
Dr. Lantz, MD, is the chief of geriatric psychiatry at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, NY, an associate professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and director of the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Program at Beth Israel Medical Center. She has published many articles related to dementia, depression, psychiatry in the nursing home, and the treatment of agitation. Dr. Lantz is active in teaching medical students, residents and fellows and has a special interest in behavioral interventions for dementia care.
 
  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.
 
  Charles F. Reynolds, III, MD
Dr. Reynolds, president of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) endowed professor of geriatric psychiatry and professor of behavioral and community health science at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health, respectively. He directs the NIMH-sponsored Advanced Center for Interventions and Services Research and the John A. Hartford Foundation Center of Excellence in Geriatric Psychiatry. His research focuses on the late-life depression and ways to improve mental health services delivery for older disadvantaged (often minority) adults living with mood disorders.