Bio
George S. Alexopoulos, M.D. is the S.P. Tobin and A.M. Cooper Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medical College, Professor of the Weill-Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and Director of the Weill-Cornell Institute of Geriatric Psychiatry.
Dr. Alexopoulos received his medical degree from the National University of Athens, Greece. He was initially trained at New Jersey Medical School and completed his psychiatric residency at Cornell University Medical College, where he also had his research fellowship in Psychobiology.
Dr. Alexopoulos research focuses on: 1) Neurobiological disturbances in late- and mid-life mood disorders; 2) Novel treatment development; and 3) Improvement of community care. With neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies, he identified distinct syndromes of late-life depression (e.g. depression-executive dysfunction syndrome of late life, vascular depression) and described their biosignatures. He has been one of the first to use neurobiological models to streamline and simplify behavioral interventions so that they can be used broadly by community therapists. Dr. Alexopoulos’ work has been supported by numerous NIMH grants for treatments of patients with unmet needs including low income depressed, disabled, home-bound patients, depressed stroke victims, depressed patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and depressed patients with comorbid executive dysfunction. He served as the coordinating principal investigator of the multi-center, NIMH-supported PROSPECT Study, which tested a care management system for reducing suicidal ideation and depression in older primary care patients. Dr. Alexopoulos has been the director of four competing NIMH renewals of a P30 Advanced Center for Interventions and Services Research (ACISR) over 20 years. He has been the founder and current director the Weill-Cornell Institute of Geriatric Psychiatry and has assembled a team of distinguished investigators who advance the interventions’ field and serve as mentors to numerous research trainees. He has been the Director of an NIMH Research Fellowship in Geriatric Mood Disorders since 1989 and the primary mentor of eight scientists who received NIH Career K-Awards. He has reported his findings in more than 400 articles and book chapters.
Dr. Alexopoulos has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Institute of Mental Health. He is a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, a fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, a fellow of the American Psychopathological Association, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Alexopoulos has received a Presidential Commendation by the American Psychiatric Association, the Research Award of the International College of American College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology, the Greenberg Award of the American Psychiatric Association, the Geriatric Research Award of the American College of Psychiatrists, the Joseph Zubin Research Award of the American Psychopathological Association, the Distinguished Psychiatrist Lecturer Award of the American Psychiatry Association, and the Senior Investigator’s Award of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the Cutting Edge Award/Distinguished Physicians 2016, the 2017 Legacies Award by LifeForce in Later Years. He is the Editor for the Western Hemisphere and Japan of the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.