IASP Executive Committee
Dr. Lanny Berman
President
Alan (Lanny) Berman is Executive Director of the American Association of Suicidology (AAS). He is a Past-President of the AAS (1984-1985), their 1982 Shneidman Award recipient (for Outstanding Contributions in Research in Suicidology), and their 2006 Louis I. Dublin Award recipient for outstanding service and contributions to the field of suicide prevention. He holds a B.A. degree from the Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of America. From 1969 to 1991 he taught at the American University where he attained the rank of tenured full professor. In 1991, Dr. Berman was appointed Distinguished Adjunct Professor at the university when he was named Director of the National Center for the Study and Prevention of Suicide at the Washington School of Psychiatry, a position he held until accepting his current role with the AAS in January, 1995.
A Diplomate in Clinical Psychology (American Board of Professional Psychology) and a Fellow of both the American Psychological Association and the International Academy for Suicide Research, he maintains a part-time private practice of psychotherapy and forensic consultation in Washington, D.C. He is Board Certified in Forensic Suicidology by the AAS. He has authored or edited 6 books and more than 100 professional articles and book chapters in Suicidology. He is a consulting editor to Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, Crisis, and Archives of Suicide Research. Previously he served terms as Vice President and as Treasurer of IASP.
(View Past Presidents of the IASP.)
Professor Marco Sarchiapone
1st Vice President
Professor Marco Sarchiapone, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is an Associated Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Molise, Italy. Professor Sarchiapone has been involved in research in the field of suicidology for more than 20 years in an interdisciplinary perspective, ranging from biological aspects to social and psychological correlates. The current main focus of his research is prevention of suicidal behaviour in adolescents.
Professor Sarchiapone is deputy coordinator of two large research projects: Saving and Empowering Young Lives in Europe (SEYLE) and Working in Europe to Stop Truancy Among Youth (WE-STAY) regarding the prevention of suicidal and other at-risk behaviours in adolescents. These research projects are designed as randomized controlled trials of interventions to prevent suicide (SEYLE) and school drop-outs (WE-STAY) and are being implemented on a total population of over 20000 school pupils. Both projects are funded under the EU 7th Framework Programme.
Professor Sarchiapone is one of the main promoters of the research project Suicide Prevention through the Internet and the Media (SUPREME), funded by the European Agency for Health and Consumers. This project is focused on suicide prevention in adolescents through an ad-hoc developed interactive website. Professor Sarchiapone is also site leader for Italy in the European project, Monitoring Suicide in Europe (MONSUE). Participation in these collaborative projects has allowed for the creation of a wide network of International collaborations with the major worldwide research groups in the field.
In Italy, Professor Sarchiapone has been responsible for a large research project on psychological and genetic factors associated to violence and self-harm behavior in prisoners. The gathered samples are currently analyzed in the framework of a joint project with the National Institute of Health (NIH). Professor Sarchiapone recently organized and was President of the 13th European Symposium on Suicide and Suicidal Behaviour (ESSSB) which was held in September 2010 and gathered more than 800 delegates, representing 64 nations in all continents.
Dr Ella Arensman
2nd Vice President
Dr Ella Arensman is Director of Research with the National Suicide Research Foundation and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College Cork, Ireland, positions which she took up in 2003. Prior to this, she worked most of the time at Leiden University and Vrije University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. She has been involved in research into suicide and deliberate self harm over the last 20 years, with a particular emphasis on risk and protective factors associated with suicide and deliberate self harm, cross-cultural differences, and efficacy of intervention and prevention programmes addressing suicidal behaviour. Since the early nineties she has been involved in various international collaborative studies including the WHO/Euro Multicentre study on Suicidal Behaviour, Child and Adolescent Self Harm (CASE), the European Alliance Against Depression (EAAD) and Optimised Suicide Prevention programmes and their Implementation in Europe (OSPI-Europe). She is also co-ordinator of the Network for International Collaboration on Evidence in Suicide Prevention (NICE-SP).
Dr Arensman has published in scientific peer reviewed journals and contributed to international textbooks on suicidal behaviour. She also acts as a reviewer for many international scientific journals. She is a member of various national and international advisory boards, and she was a member of the writing group that prepared the National Strategy for Action on Suicide Prevention, Reach Out (2005-2014) in Ireland.
Dr Arensman is strongly committed to the further development of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP), in particular to promote wider implementation of evidence based intervention and prevention programmes to reduce suicidal behaviour, to enhance international collaboration in suicide research and prevention enabling exchange of knowledge and expertise, and to bridge the gap between research groups and policy makers, nationally and internationally.
Professor Paul Yip
3rd Vice President
Dr Paul Yip is the Director of the Centre Suicide Research and Prevention and a professor of the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong. He has served as a national representative of the IASP since 2002 (Hong Kong Region) and a fellow of the International Association of Suicide Research. He has research interests on population health and suicide prevention areas. He has published papers in bio-medical-socio areas. His recent monograph "Suicide in Asia: causes and prevention" published by the Hong Kong University Press has provided an important contribution in understanding suicides and its prevention in Asia. He has also done innovative suicide prevention work in restricting means of charcoal in a community-based exploratory study. He is a pioneer in developing sophisticated surveillance system in monitoring and estimating suicide rate.
Dr Yip has served as an honorary board of governors for Suicide Prevention Service and a consultant for Beijing and Shenzhen Suicide Prevention Service and Hong Kong Government on population health issues. He has been appointed as a part-time member of the Central Policy Unit of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government since 2009. He has received a Distinguished Alumni Award, La Trobe University in 2008 for his excellent research and service on population health. He is also a recipient of an Excellent Research Award "Charcoal Burning Suicide" by the Health and Welfare Bureau of Hong Kong SAR Government. 2007 and a Silver Asian Innovation Award, by Asian Wall Street Journal and Singapore Economic Development Board, 2005. The Centre hosted the 3rd IASP Asia Pacific Suicide Prevention Conference in Hong Kong in 2008.
Dr Yip's current interests are: in adopting a public health approach in suicide prevention especially, restriction of means, cost-effectiveness of suicide prevention, mass media contagious effect on suicide, east and west comparison in suicide gender ratio, cultural and religious effect on suicide and program evaluation of evidence-based suicide prevention programs.
Professor Michael R. Phillips
Treasurer
Dr. Michael Phillips received a BSc (psychology) from McGill University, an MD from McMaster University and an MA (anthropology) and MPH (epidemiology) from the University of Washington in Seattle. He completed his psychiatry residency training at the University of Washington followed by a two-year Robert Wood Johnson Research Training Fellowship.
Dr Philips has been a permanent resident of China since 1985 and is currently the Executive Director of the Beijing Suicide Research and Prevention Center and of the WHO Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention at Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital. He is also professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Clinical Epidemiology at Columbia University (USA), Visiting Professor at Peking Union Medical College (PUMC), Chairperson of the Suicide Prevention Committee of the Chinese Society for Injury Prevention and Control, Chairperson of the Expert Committee on Research Methods of the Chinese Society of Psychiatry, and an advisor on mental health issues in China for the WHO. An active member of IASP for more than a decade, Dr. Phillips has been the China Representative for the Association since 2003 and the deputy-chair of the Council of National Representatives since 2005. He is on the editorial boards of several Chinese and English-language journals including Suicide and Life Threatening Behavior and the Archives of Suicide Research.
Dr. Phillips is currently PI on a number of multi-center collaborative projects on suicide, depression and schizophrenia. With the assistance of the 80 full-time staff at his Center, Dr. Phillips runs a number of research training courses each year, supervises Chinese and foreign graduate students, helps coordinate WHO mental health activities in China, promotes increased awareness of the importance of addressing China's huge suicide problem and advocates improving the quality, comprehensiveness and access to mental health services around the country.
Dr. Tony Davis
General Secretary
Having graduated in medicine at the University of Adelaide in 1976, Tony Davis undertook specialist training in Psychiatry in London and Adelaide between 1979 and 1984. He has since worked as a consultant psychiatrist in Adelaide in teaching hospital, university and private practice settings. He is currently Director of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) and Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Adelaide. He maintains an active clinical role as a Consultant to the acute psychiatric services at the RAH, with a special focus on the assessment and management of suicidal patients. He also works as a Consultant in Pain Medicine and Neuropsychiatry at the RAH, whilst running a busy private practice in the city. Since 1980 he has been actively involved in under-graduate and post-graduate teaching, community based education programmes and clinical research, focussing particularly on depression and attempted suicide.
He has been involved with IASP since 1993, regularly attending international conferences and being a member of the organizing committee and scientific convenor of the IASP Congress in Adelaide in 1997. He has a commitment to the main objectives of IASP, and particularly the aim of bringing together all available knowledge and expertise for the education of health professionals and the general population, to optimize management of suicidal people and prevent suicide at a local and international level. He is keen to foster cross-national collaborations, particularly with developing countries. As General Secretary, he aims to ensure that there is cohesiveness between the membership, the Executive and external stakeholders so that the aims of IASP are realized. He also aims to facilitate open communication within the organization and ensure that the infrastructure and archives are well maintained.
Dr. Murad Khan
Chair, Council of National Representatives
Murad Khan is Professor & Chairman, Department of Psychiatry, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan. He completed his medical training from University of Karachi and higher psychiatric training in General Adult and Old Age Psychiatry at Maudsley and Kings College Hospital, London, UK. He has over 25 years of experience in teaching, research and clinical psychiatry. He is the Principal investigator of Karachi Suicide Study, a collaborative study with the Institute of Psychiatry, London. He is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, International Academy of Suicide Research (IASR), Chair of Council of National Representatives and Board Member of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP). He has published extensively on suicide and attempted suicide in Pakistan and is on the editorial board of a number of national and international journals. His research interests include mental health of women and elderly, psychosomatic medicine and bioethics.
Dr. Jerry Reed
Chair, Council of Organisational Representatives
Jerry Reed began serving as the Director of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center at the Education Development Center in July 2008. In this role he oversees the federally funded Suicide Prevention Resource Center (SPRC). Through this work he provides state and local officials, grantees, policymakers, interested stakeholders and the general public with assistance in developing, implementing and evaluating programs and strategies to prevent suicide. Additionally, Dr. Reed serves as the Director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Injury, Violence and Suicide.
Prior to this appointment, Dr. Reed served for five years as Executive Director of the Suicide Prevention Action Network USA (SPAN USA) a national non-profit created to raise awareness, build political will, and call for action with regard to advancing, implementing and evaluating a national strategy to address suicide. He spent 15 years as a career civil servant working in both Europe and the United States as a civilian with the Department of the Army developing, implementing and managing a variety of quality of life programs including substance abuse prevention and treatment, family advocacy, child and youth development programs, social services and the range of morale, welfare and recreation programs. Selected as a Congressional Fellow in 1996, Dr. Reed worked in the Office of Senator Harry Reid from Nevada serving as senior advisor on health care, mental health, suicide prevention and aging issues.
Dr. Reed speaks nationally and internationally on the topic of suicide prevention. His interests include geriatrics, mental health, suicide prevention, global violence prevention and public policy.
Dr. Reed received a Ph.D. in Health Related Sciences with an emphasis in Gerontology from the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in 2007. His research topic addressed variation among states in crude rates of older adult male suicide. He also received a Masters of Social Work degree with an emphasis in Aging Administration from the University of Maryland at Baltimore in 1982.
