Freedman retiring as psychiatry chair

Robert Freedman, chair of psychiatry in the School of Medicine, recently announced that he will be retiring effective Aug. 31, 2016.

Freedman joined the University of Colorado faculty in 1978 as assistant professor of psychiatry and pharmacology and became chair of psychiatry in 2000. Last October, he was awarded the Lieber Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Schizophrenia Research by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation for “pioneering research that examines the convergence between physiology and genetics in schizophrenia.” In 2012, his book “The Madness Within Us: Schizophrenia as a Neuronal Process,” was published by the Oxford University Press. The foundation noted: “Under his leadership, investigators at the Institute for Children’s Mental Disorders, which he co-founded in 1999, have discovered genetic variants that affect the risks for serious psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. These findings have led to new investigational treatments, currently in FDA-approved trials, for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults, and for administration to pregnant women and their newborn children to prevent abnormalities in early brain development that may lead to mental illness later in life.”