Department of Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus

Harvard Medical School, Dept. of Social Medicine

641 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Phone: 617-432-1710

Fax: 617-432-2565

Dr. Eisenberg received his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania (1946) and took his internship at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He served for two years as Captain in the Army Medical Corps and then completed a residency in psychiatry at the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital (1952) in Baltimore and a Fellowship in Child Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Hospital under Professor Leo Kanner (1954). He became Chief of Child Psychiatry at Hopkins in 1961 and moved to Harvard in 1967 as Chief of Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In 1980, he became Chair of the Department of Social Medicine and Health Policy. In July of 1993, Dr. Leon Eisenberg reached Emeritus status at Harvard Medical School but continues to work full time.

He has served as consultant to the Division of Mental Health at the World Health Organization in Geneva in multiple capacities since 1964. He chaired the Scientific Group on Stress, Lifestyle and the Prevention of Disease in Sophia, Bulgaria (1981), the Working Group on Human Ecology and Health in Metepec, Mexico (1982), and the Scientific Group on the Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders, Geneva (1989). He participated in the Consultation Group for the Formulation of an Action Plan for Child Mental Health in Montevideo, Uruguay (1991), the Joint Meeting with the International School of Neurological Science in Venice, Italy (1993) and the Task Force on Global Action for the Improvement of Mental Health Care, Geneva (1994).

He is the recipient of honorary Doctor of Science degrees from the University of Manchester in the U.K. (1973) and the University of Massachusetts in the U.S. (1991). He has received the Theobald Smith Award of Albany Medical College (1979), the Aldrich (1980) and Dale Richmond (1989) Awards from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Samuel T. Orton Ward (1980) of Orton Society, the Special Presidential Commendation (1992) and the Agnes Purcell McGavin Award for Prevention (1994) of the American Psychiatric Association, the distinguished Alumnus Award of the University of Pennsylvania (1992), the Camille Cosby Award of the Judge Baker Children’s Center (1994), the Thomas W. Salmon Medal of the New York Academy of Medicine (1995), the Blanche F. Ittleson Memorial Award of the American Orthopsychiatric Association (1996), and the Mumford Award of the School of Public Health at Columbia University (1996). He has received the 1996 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat prize for outstanding contributions to mental health from the Institute of Medicine. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Greek Society of Neurology and Psychiatry, of the Ecuadorean Academy of Neuroscience, and of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (U.K.).

He has published widely: 207 articles in referred journals, 121 chapters in books, and eight co-edited books. The two most recent books he co-edited are: World Mental Health: Problems and Priorities in Low-Income Countries (Oxford University Press, 1995); and The Best Intentions: Unintended Pregnancy and the Well-Being of Children and Families (National Academy Press, 1995).