Leadership
Leadership
Name | Title |
---|---|
Paula Schnurr, PhD | Executive Director, Executive Division |
Matthew Friedman, MD, PhD | Senior Advisor, Executive Division |
Terence M. Keane, PhD | Director, Behavioral Science |
John H. Krystal, MD | Director, Clinical Neurosciences |
Rani Hoff, PhD, MPH | Director, Evaluation |
Tara Galovski, PhD | Director, Women's Health Sciences |
Craig Rosen, PhD | Acting Director, Dissemination and Training |
Vacant | Director, Pacific Islands |
Learn about the seven Divisions of the National Center for PTSD. From this page you can find full staff directories for each location.
Paula Schnurr, PhD
Executive Director
Executive Division, VT
![Portrait of Paula Schnurr](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/paula_schnurr.jpg)
Dr. Paula Schnurr is the Executive Director of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and had previously served as Deputy Executive Director of the Center since 1989. She is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Editor of the Clinician's Trauma Update-Online.
She received her PhD in Experimental Psychology at Dartmouth College in 1984 and then completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Dr. Schnurr is Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Association for Psychological Science. She previously served as Editor of the Journal of Traumatic Stress.
She has investigated risk and resilience factors associated with the long-term physical and mental health outcomes of exposure to traumatic events. She is an expert on psychotherapy research and has conducted a number of clinical trials of PTSD treatment, including multi-site trials of Prolonged Exposure for female veterans and active duty personnel with PTSD and of group psychotherapy for PTSD in Vietnam veterans. Her most current grants are a comparative effectiveness trial of Prolonged Exposure and Cognitive Processing Therapy and a validation of the Primary-Care PTSD Screen for DSM-5.
Matthew J. Friedman, MD, PhD
Senior Advisor (Former Executive Director)
Executive Division, VT
![Portrait of Matthew J. Friedman](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/matthew_friedman.jpg)
Dr. Friedman is founder and former Executive Director of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, US Department of Veterans Affairs, and Professor of Psychiatry and of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He has worked with PTSD patients as a clinician and researcher for thirty-five years and has published extensively on stress and PTSD, biological psychiatry, psychopharmacology, and clinical outcome studies on depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and chemical dependency. He has over 200 publications, including 23 books and monographs.
Listed in The Best Doctors in America, he is a Distinguished Lifetime Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, past-president of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), past chair of the scientific advisory board of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), member of APA's DSM-5 Anxiety Disorders Work Group, (and chair of the Trauma and Dissociative Disorders SubWork Group).
He has served on many VA, DoD and NIMH research, education and policy committees. He has received many honors including the ISTSS Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999 and the ISTSS Public Advocacy Award in 2009. He was a finalist for the 2011 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal in the Career Achievement Division.
Terence M. Keane, PhD
Division Director
Behavioral Science Division, MA
![Portrait of Terence M. Keane](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/keaneclr.jpg)
Dr. Keane is a professor of Psychiatry and Assistant Dean for Research at Boston University School of Medicine. He is also recognized as a world leader in the field of traumatic stress. An authority on the cognitive behavioral treatment of PTSD, he also developed many of the most widely used PTSD assessment measures.
Dr. Keane was co-chair of the NIMH Consensus Conference that established national standards for the diagnosis and assessment of PTSD. His research has been continuously funded for 34 years and he's published nearly 300 journal articles, books, chapters, tests, and treatment manuals. Dr. Keane is current president of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), is a past president of ISTSS, and the Division of Trauma Psychology of the APA; he is also a fellow of the APA and the Association for Psychological Science (APS).
Over the course of his career, he's received many awards, including a Fulbright Scholarship (1993-94), Binghamton University's Weisband Distinguished Alumnus Award (1998), the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy's Outstanding Researcher Award (2004), the Robert J. Laufer Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award (1997), the ISTSS Lifetime Achievement Award (2004), the Harold Hildreth Award for Distinguished Public Service (2012), and the Society for Clinical Psychology's Outstanding Researcher in Clinical Psychology from the APA. In 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from Binghamton University, his alma mater, and again in 2013 from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology for his pioneering contributions to research on PTSD.
John H. Krystal, MD
Division Director
Clinical Neurosciences Division, CT
![Portrait of John H. Krystal](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/krystal.jpg)
Dr. Krystal is the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Professor of Translational Research and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine. He is one of the nation's leading investigators on the neurobiology, genetics, and psychopharmacology of PTSD. Dr. Krystal has published over 400 papers and reviews.
He currently serves as Editor of Biological Psychiatry, member of the NIAAA National Alcohol Advisory Council, member of the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and president of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He previously served on the Psychological Health Subcommittee of the Defense Health Board of the Department of Defense.
He was the first recipient of the ISTSS Danielli Award for PTSD research and he has received a number of subsequent honors including the Anna-Monika Foundation Prize for depression research, the NIAAA Jack Mendelson Award for alcoholism research, the APA Kempf Award for schizophrenia research and research mentorship, and the ACNP Joel Elkes Award for translational neuroscience.
Rani Hoff, PhD, MPH
Division Director
Evaluation Division, CT
![Portrait of Rani Hoff](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/rani-photo.jpg)
Dr. Hoff received both her MPH in chronic disease epidemiology, and her PhD in mental health services research and psychiatric epidemiology, from Yale University. Dr. Hoff serves as Director of the Northeast Program Evaluation Center, which is one evaluation center in the Office of mental Health Operations in VA Central Office, is the head of the Women and Trauma Core of Women's Health Research at Yale, and is Associate Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at Yale. She is also a Professor Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine
Dr. Hoff's research utilizes principles of psychiatric epidemiology and services research to examine risk factors and correlates of several psychiatric disorders, with particular attention paid to co-occurring disorders. This research has included studies on pathological gambling, schizophrenia, substance abuse/dependence, the risk of suicide in psychiatric patients, trauma and comorbidity, criminal justice mental health, and the mental health problems experienced by the homeless.
At the national level, Dr. Hoff serves as the lead program evaluator for the following VA programs nationally: PTSD specialized programs, intensive case management programs, psychosocial rehabilitation and recovery programs, compensated work therapy, residential treatment programs, and homeless programs. She has served on several advisory committees to the VA on the mental health needs of female veterans, with particular attention to military sexual trauma, as well as the Undersecretary's Advisory Committee on PTSD.
Tara Galovski, PhD
Division Director
Women's Health Sciences Division, MA
![Tara Galovski, PhD](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/TaraG.png)
Dr. Galovski serves as the Director of the Women's Health Sciences Division which focuses on the special issues of women's health and PTSD, and especially on effective treatments.
Dr. Galovski's research interests include investigations into the effects of exposure to traumatic events and the development of interventions designed to aid individuals suffering from such exposure. Dr. Galovski has specifically assessed gender differences in the recovery from posttraumatic stress disorder and comorbid disorders. She is interested in the influences of anger, health-related complications and sleep impairment on recovery processes.
Her work has been conducted with survivors of interpersonal violence, veterans, law enforcement, and active duty Service members. Her clinical trials have been funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Craig Rosen, PhD
Division Acting Director
Dissemination and Training Division, CA
![Portrait of Craig Rosen, PhD](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218023853im_/https://www.ptsd.va.gov/about/images/staff/Craig_Rosen.jpg)
Dr. Craig Rosen is the Acting Director and the Deputy Director of the Dissemination and Training Division of the National Center for PTSD. He is a clinical psychologist specializing in psychosocial treatment of PTSD and is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Stanford University School of Medicine. He leads two QUERI workgroups involved in promoting implementation of evidence-based care for Veterans with PTSD. Dr. Rosen's primary research interest is improving access to high quality care for Veterans with posttraumatic stress. One aspect of his work is enhancing patient motivation for engaging in treatment. Another part of his work uses telemedicine technologies (telephone, video teleconferencing, internet, and smartphones) to expand reach of mental health services. A third area of his work is helping clinicians overcome barriers to implementing evidence-based practices.
Vacant
Division Director
Pacific Islands Division, HI