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Board of Trustees

Affiliations are for identification purposes only.

David Apatoff
An expert on federal grants and contracts, David Apatoff is a partner in the Arnold & Porter law firm. He is co-chair of the firm's intellectual property and technology group, working with research in biotechnology, genomic research and life sciences. He has a strong personal interest in the welfare of people with mental disabilities.

Eileen A. Bazelon
Eileen Bazelon works with children and adolescents in her private psychiatric practice and has provided expert testimony in many child custody cases. She is consulting psychiatrist for Bryn Mawr College and assistant professor at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Hahnemann Medical School, and works with a variety of public-interest groups in Philadelphia.

Robert A. Burt
A member of the Yale faculty since 1976, Robert Burt taught at the University of Michigan law and medical schools and the University of Chicago law school. He has written extensively on biomedical ethics and constitutional law, including The Constitution in Conflict (Harvard Univ. Press, 1992) and Taking Care of Strangers: The Rule of Law in Doctor-Patient Relations (Free Press, 1979), and is a member of the advisory board of the Project on Death in America of the Open Society Institute and the Institute of Medicine.

Jacqueline Dryfoos
A psychotherapist working with individuals, couples and families in her New York City private practice, Jacqueline Dryfoos has a longstanding interest in promoting public acceptance of mental health issues.

Kenneth R. Feinberg
A nationally recognized mediator and arbitrator, Kenneth Feinberg has helped resolve some of the country's most complex and protracted disputes, e.g., Agent Orange and the closing of the Shoreham Nuclear Plant. Formerly chief of staff to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and special master administering the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, he heads the firm of Kenneth R. Feinberg & Associates.

Howard H. Goldman
Howard Goldman is professor of psychiatry and director of mental health policy studies at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He received the U.S. Surgeon General's medallion in November 2000 for his work as the senior scientific editor of the Surgeon General's 1999 Report on Mental Health. He is currently editor-designate of Psychiatric Services magazine.

Nikki Heidepriem
A partner in a Washington D.C. political and public policy consulting firm, Nikki Heidepriem managed the national campaign for mental health parity sponsored by the Bazelon Center in 1994. She has a strong personal commitment to improving the lives of people with mental disabilities.

Emily Hoffman
Emily Hoffman, M.S.W., is Statewide Network Coordinator with On Our Own Maryland, a consumer-run program focusing on the rights of people with mental disabilities. She has also worked on media approaches addressing public fears of and discrimination against people with mental illnesses, directing and consulting on the production of videos and developing screenplays.

Jacki McKinney
Jacki McKinney, M.S.W., is a survivor of trauma, addiction, homelessness and the psychiatric and criminal justice systems. She is a family advocate specializing in issues affecting African-American women and their children and is a founding member of the National People of Color Consumer/Survivor Network. Ms. McKinney has been a consultant and advisor to the Center for Mental Health Services and is well known for her moving presentations to national audiences on issues such as seclusion/restraint, intergenerational family support and minority issues in public mental health. The National Mental Health Association has honored Jacki McKinney with the Clifford Beers award for her work on behalf of people with mental disabilities.

Martha L. Minow
Besides teaching civil procedure, family law and other courses at Harvard Law School, Martha Minow serves on the boards of the Revson and Covenant Foundations, and Harvard University Press. Her books include Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History After Genocide and Mass Violence (Beacon Press: Boston, 1998) and Making All the Difference: Inclusion, Exclusion, and American Law (Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY, 1990).

Stephen J. Morse
Trained as both a lawyer and a psychologist, Stephen Morse is a Professor of Law and Professor of Psychology and Law in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. His scholarly and practice interests focus on the legal and moral claims of people with mental disabilities.

Joseph Perpich
Joseph G. Perpich is president of JG Perpich, LLC, a consulting firm in Bethesda, Maryland specializing in program development, assessment and information services for initiatives in the biomedical sciences, education, medicine and science policy. The former vice president for grants and special programs at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dr. Perpich serves on the boards of the Greenwall Foundation, the Hillandale Group of the Sulzberger Family Foundation, the Britannica Student Encyclopedia, the AAAS BioSci Education Network Advisory Board, the Global Center for Dispute Resolution Research (American Arbitration Association), and Technology in Society’s twenty-fifth anniversary committee. A graduate of the University of Minnesota and its medical school, he received his law degree from Georgetown University in 1974 and clerked for Judge David Bazelon.

Paul Recer
Paul Recer retired in 2004 after more than 40 years as a journalist, covering stories in virtually every field of science, from astronomy to zoology. A Texan, he worked for two newspapers and was Houston bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report, later becoming the magazine's science editor in Washington. From 1987 to 2004, he was senior science writer for the Washington bureau of Associated Press, responsible for coverage of NASA,  the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. He was one of 40 semifinalists, of several thousand who competed, in NASA's Journalist in Space program and in 1984 received AP's Managing Editor's deadline writer of the year award. Recer is married to Susanna McBee, also a retired Washington journalist.

Rhonda Robinson-Beale
Dr. Robinson-Beale is the Chief Medical Officer for United Behavioral Health, responsible for facilitating the organization’s clinical direction, quality of care and clinical policy. She is currently a member of the Institute of Medicine Health Services Board and co-authored the agency’s 1997 study, “Managing Managed Care Quality Improvement in Behavioral Health.” She also serves on NCQA’s Review Oversight Committee and was a member of the Behavioral Medicine Subcommittee that wrote and refined the behavioral medicine standards for health care businesses.

Harvey Rosenthal
As executive director of the New York State Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services and chair of the state's Mental Health Action Network, Harvey Rosenthal speaks out statewide and nationally for the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities. His involvement in mental health issues is both personal, dating to his hospitalization at age 19, and professional, with more than 20 years of experience working in a range of community mental health settings. He is the recipient of the prestigious John Beard Award for 2001, given by the International Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation.

Elyn R. Saks
Elyn Saks is Orrin B. Evans Professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. She has done extensive research on informed consent and competency to refuse treatment and is the author of three books: Refusing Care: Forced Treatment and the Rights of the Mentally Ill, Interpreting Interpretation: The Limits of Hermeneutic Psychoanalysis, and Jekyll on Trial: Multiple Personality Disorder and Criminal Law. Her next, titled The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, chronicles her struggles with schizophrenia.

W. Allen Schaffer
Allen Schaffer, MD is a health policy consultant. Formerly senior vice president of clinical strategy and health policy with CIGNA Healthcare, he previously served as head of professional affairs and quality management at Aetna Health Plans and led quality management and primary care delivery programs at Humana. Dr. Schaffer currently serves on the board of the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health, the national advisory board for the Agency for Heathcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and has served on the boards of National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) and the American Association of Health Plans (AAHP).

Cynthia M. Stinger
Mother of a teenage son with multiple disabilities, Cynthia Stinger's ambition is to further understanding of and support for people with mental disabilities. She is vice president of government relations of Washington Group International, a leading international engineering and construction firm, and president of the GPU Foundation.

Martin Tolchin
Martin Tolchin is an author and journalist who capped 40 years at the N.Y. Times by founding The Hill, a newspaper published three times a week that reports on the activities of Congress. Mr. Tolchin and his wife Susan are the authors of six books, including "To the Victor: Political Patronage from the Clubhouse to the White House," which has been cited in four decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sally Zinman
Active in the mental patients rights movement for almost 25 years, Sally Zinman is the executive director of the California Network of Mental Health Clients. She was a leader in conceptualizing, developing and implementing the self-help, client-run model of mental health programs that is today an integral part of many mental health systems. Her published works on self-help and peer-advocacy are used as manuals by groups replicating the model across the country and she is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences on public mental health policy.

HONORARY TRUSTEE

Miriam Bazelon Knox
An energetic advocate for children's needs and mental health causes for decades, "Mickey" Knox founded the first nonsectarian interracial child guidance clinic in the metropolitan Washington area. The clinic was sponsored by the Jewish Social Service Agency, of which she became the first woman president. She served as vice-chair of both the D.C. Public Welfare Commission and the United Givers Fund Planning Department, and was on the original Head Start staff. She is a longtime member of the national board of the Home and School Institute and founded the first of the Children's Reading Festivals now held in many communities.

TRUSTEES EMERITI

Mary Jane England
Dr. England, began her career as a psychiatrist as head of child psychiatry at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington DC. Currenty president of Regis College in Weston, Massachusetts, her alma mater, she is a member of the Coordinating Council of the Coalition for Healthier Cities and Communities in the United States and the National Academy of Sciences, among others, and serves on the boards of dozens of professional organizations, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the American College of Psychiatrists, the American Medical Women's Association, and the American Psychiatric Association, Inc., of which she was president from 1995 to 1996.

H. Rutherford Turnbull, III
Together with his wife, Ann, Rud is the parent of a son, now in his 30s, with mental and cognitive disabilities and co-director of a research center at The University of Kansas focused on the effects of public policy on the quality of life of families who have children with disabilities. He is also professor of special education and courtesy professor of law and has been president of the American Association on Mental Retardation, chairman of the American Bar Association Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law, secretary of the ARC of the USA and treasurer of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps.