By Nicholas Roznovsky
Daniel Becker, MD
Following an extensive national search initiated last year, the UCSF Department of Psychiatry has appointed Daniel Becker, MD, as its inaugural Vice Chair for Strategy, effective July 1, 2020.
In this new position, Becker will play a leading role in the department, Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, and UCSF Health's efforts develop and execute a clinical behavioral health strategy focused on an increasingly large network of partners, including other health systems, health-tech enterprises, and local and regional employers. He will help guide the department's development of business and operational plans for new and existing services, particularly those that involve relationships with external partners. In addition to those responsibilities, he will also provide direct clinical care to adolescent and transitional age patients at Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital.
Becker earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his medical degree from the University of Wisconsin. He completed residency training at Yale University and is board-certified in psychiatry and addiction psychiatry. He has been an active teacher and researcher throughout his career, with research interests focusing on adolescent and young adult psychopathology. Becker also has extensive experience leading clinical program development and operations in a variety of settings, including community not-for-profit and academic medical centers. He most recently served as the chief medical director of El Camino Health’s Scrivner Center for Mental Health & Addiction Services and has been an active volunteer clinical professor at UCSF since 1997.
"I'm pleased that not only is Dan a highly accomplished and experienced academic and clinical leader, but also someone who will bring a wealth of expertise and vision to a role that will be particularly important for our future," said Oberndorf Family Distinguished Professor and department chair Matthew W. State, MD, PhD. "The ability to develop new alliances and partnerships that will allow us to leverage our exceptional academic and clinical expertise to the greatest extent possible has never been more crucial."
About UCSF Psychiatry
The UCSF Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, and the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute are among the nation's foremost resources in the fields of child, adolescent, adult, and geriatric mental health. Together they constitute one of the largest departments in the UCSF School of Medicine and the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, with a mission focused on research (basic, translational, clinical), teaching, patient care, and public service.
UCSF Psychiatry conducts its clinical, educational and research efforts at a variety of locations in Northern California, including UCSF campuses at Parnassus Heights, Mission Bay and Laurel Heights, UCSF Medical Center, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, the San Francisco VA Health Care System, and UCSF Fresno.
About the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences
The UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, established by the extraordinary generosity of Joan and Sanford I. "Sandy" Weill, brings together world-class researchers with top-ranked physicians to solve some of the most complex challenges in the human brain.
The UCSF Weill Institute leverages UCSF’s unrivaled bench-to-bedside excellence in the neurosciences. It unites three UCSF departments—Neurology, Psychiatry, and Neurological Surgery—that are highly esteemed for both patient care and research, as well as the Neuroscience Graduate Program, a cross-disciplinary alliance of nearly 100 UCSF faculty members from 15 basic-science departments, as well as the UCSF Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, a multidisciplinary research center focused on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson’s disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders.
About UCSF
UC San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. It includes top-ranked graduate schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing and pharmacy; a graduate division with nationally renowned programs in basic, biomedical, translational and population sciences; and a preeminent biomedical research enterprise.
It also includes UCSF Health, which comprises three top-ranked hospitals—UCSF Medical Center and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland—as well as Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital, UCSF Benioff Children’s Physicians, and the UCSF Faculty Practice. UCSF Health has affiliations with hospitals and health organizations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF faculty also provide all physician care at the public Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, and the San Francisco VA Medical Center. The UCSF Fresno Medical Education Program is a major branch of the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.
