Helen Blair Simpson, MD, PhD

Helen Blair Simpson, M.D., Ph.D., is Director of the Center for the Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) and Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical College (CUIMC). A physician-scientist who has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health since 1999, Dr. Simpson uses clinical trials to identify the best treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), collaborates with neuroscientists to elucidate how the brain produces anxiety, obsessions, and compulsions, and partners with implementation scientists to increase access to evidence-based OCD treatment across New York State. Her goal is to transform care for individuals with OCD. Past advisor to the World Health Organization on the classification of OCD and author of the American Psychiatric Association’s Practice Guidelines for OCD, Dr. Simpson currently serves as Associate Editor of JAMA-Psychiatry and the President of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Dr. Simpson graduated from Yale College with a BS in biology. She then completed the MD-PhD program at The Rockefeller University/Cornell University Medical College. Her PhD focused on the brain pathways underlying learned versus unlearned vocalizations in songbirds. She then completed the internship and residency in psychiatry at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute and a research fellowship funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, before developing the independent research program that she leads today.