Dr. Dennis S. Charney is a preeminent leader in psychiatric research and academic medicine who served as the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai for eighteen years before stepping down in June 2025. He currently maintains his position as President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System while continuing his research and clinical work. A graduate of Penn State College of Medicine (1977), Dr. Charney completed his psychiatry residency at Yale School of Medicine followed by a fellowship in Biological Psychiatry at the Connecticut Medical Health Center. Prior to joining Mount Sinai in 2004 as Dean of Research, he led the Mood and Anxiety Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health and served on the faculty at Yale University.
Dr. Charney has made fundamental contributions to understanding the neurobiology of anxiety, fear, depression, and resilience, with over 600 publications including seminal textbooks such as "Neurobiology of Mental Illness." He is renowned for pioneering research demonstrating ketamine's efficacy as a rapidly-acting antidepressant, a breakthrough that revolutionized treatment for depression resistant to conventional therapies. His work on the Emotional Faces Memory Task intervention for depression led to the development of REJOYN, the first FDA-cleared digital treatment for major depressive disorder in 2024. With an h-index of 218 and over 173,000 citations, his research has catalyzed life-changing advances across multiple medical fields including psychiatric disorders, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
During his tenure at Mount Sinai, Dr. Charney transformed the institution into a global biomedical research powerhouse, securing half a billion dollars annually in NIH funding and establishing more than two dozen interdisciplinary research centers. He built the nation's largest graduate medical program with over 2,600 residents and clinical fellows while forging strategic partnerships with leading technology institutions to advance digital health and precision medicine. Currently focusing his research on the science of resilience, Dr. Charney continues to champion innovative approaches to mental health treatment that bridge neuroscience, pharmacology, and digital therapeutics. His ongoing work promises to further illuminate pathways to psychological fortitude and develop novel interventions that enhance human adaptability to adversity.
