Hendren announces plans to step down as department vice chair

After six years of exceptionally dedicated service as the Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Robert Hendren, DO, has elected to step down effective June 30, 2015, to devote his full time efforts to his research, teaching, mentoring, and clinical care work. He will continue as an active member of the department's faculty and child division, leading the rapidly growing Dyslexia Center and working as a key partner in developing the new STAR Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. In addition, Hendren will continue his active clinical trials program and his very successful focus on building programs in schools, including the Charles Armstrong School and a unique new program for students with autism spectrum disorders at the Oak Hill School.

Hendren has compiled a remarkable record of accomplishment during his first six years at UCSF, and his leadership efforts have greatly strengthened the department's clinical and training programs in child and adolescent psychiatry at both Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and San Francisco General Hospital. Under Hendren’s leadership, the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has more than doubled in size and productivity with the arrival of 13 outstanding new faculty members, a new training director and a very strong clinical and research leadership team. He has also recently been named the recipient of a prestigious Klingenstein Foundation grant to support the development of an integrated neurodevelopmental curriculum for UCSF.

He holds a doctorate of osteopathic medicine from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and completed a residency in general psychiatry at the Mayo Graduate School of Medicine and a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center. Before joining UCSF, Hendren was on the faculty of the George Washington University School of Medicine, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and most recently UC Davis, where he served as Executive Director and Tsakopoulos-Vismara Chair of the MIND Institute. His research has spanned a variety of illnesses, from autism, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to eating and impulse control disorders. Since coming to UCSF in 2009, Hendren has conducted numerous clinical studies, including an innovative trial to determine if there is a genomic profile that can predict the response of autistic children to the drug risperdone. He is a past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and has published more than 100 scientific papers and four books.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Hendren, thanking him for his many contributions to the department, and extending best wishes for the exciting next phase in his career.