Judith L. Rapoport

Judith L. Rapoport
Fields	Child Psychiatry Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Childhood Onset Schizophrenia
Institutions	National Institute of Mental Health
Alma mater	Swarthmore College Harvard Medical School
Notable awards	Blanche F. Ittleson Award for Research in Child Psychiatry (1987) Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award (1991) American Psychiatric Association Award for Research (1992) Ruane Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research (2002) Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience (2005)

Judith L. Rapoport M.D. is chief of the Child Psychiatry Branch at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Her research focuses on diagnosis in child psychiatry, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Rapoport’s research group at NIMH also studies clinical phenomenology (psychology), neurobiology, and treatment of Childhood Onset Schizophrenia.

Rapoport is the author of the bestselling book, The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing: The Experience and Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (Plume, 1989), about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.^[1]

Education

In 1955, Rapoport received her B.A. degree, graduating Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. She received her medical degree in 1959 from Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.

Rapoport completed training at the National Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. and the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. She completed internships at Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan) in New York, New York, and psychiatric residencies at Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston, Massachusetts and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. She received additional research training at NIMH’s Laboratory of Psychology^[2] in Bethesda, Maryland.

Career

Rapoport’s research group at NIMH studies the clinical phenomenology, neurobiology, and treatment of Childhood Onset Schizophrenia.

In 1984, Rapoport was named chief of NIMH’s Child Psychiatry Branch. In addition to her research at NIH, she holds academic appointments in psychiatry at the George Washington University School of Medicine ^[3] and Georgetown University Medical School, both in Washington, D.C.

Rapoport is a member of a number of advisory committees of national professional medical organizations, including the National Anxiety Foundation and the American Psychopathological Association, for which she served as president. Since 1993, she has also served as a member of the scientific council of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.^[4] Rapoport has served on the editorial boards of Advances in Clinical Child Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and others.

She has also authored and coauthored several professional medical books, more than 300 scientific research papers, and more than 200 journal articles.

Honors

Rapoport is a member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Rapoport’s honors and awards include the G. Burroughs Mider Lecture (NIH, 1993); the American Psychiatric Association Award for Research (1992); the Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award (1991); the Ruane Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research (2002), awarded by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation);^[5][6] the Edward M. Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience (2005), awarded by MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research;^[7] the Blanche F. Ittleson Award for Research in Child Psychiatry (1987), awarded by the American Psychiatric Association;^[8] and others.

Personal life

Dr. Rapoport is married to Stanley I. Rapoport, M.D., a neuroscientist at the National Institute on Aging, whom she met at Harvard Medical School.^[9]

Further reading

• NIMH Intramural Lab biography
• “Thank Goodness for Uncle Sam and the National Institute of Mental Health Intramural Program,” James F. Leckman, M.D., Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, September 2011, Volume 50, Issue 9, Pages 851–853^[10]
• “NIMH Shows Off One of Its ‘Brightest Jewels,’” NIH Record, May 5, 2009 ^[11]
• Interview, “Obsessive Compulsive Disorder—History, Imaging, and Treatment: An Expert Interview With Judith L Rapoport, M.D.,” Medscape, April 30, 2007 ^[12]
• “NIH Research Festival Session Features Bench-to-Bedside Success Stories,” NIH Record, November 12, 2002 ^[13]
• “The Doubting War: Two Swarthmoreans have increased public awareness of obsessive-compulsive disorder in children,” Swarthmore Bulletin, March 2002^[14]
• “Sonya Live” segment on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, CNN, 1988^[15]
• Child Mind Institute video, “Judith Rapoport on Dimensional Research in Mental Illness” ^[16]

References