Dr. Martin Keller is a distinguished American psychiatrist who served as Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University's Warren Alpert Medical School for two decades. Martin Keller earned his BA in psychology from Dartmouth College, followed by his MD from Weill Cornell Medical College, and completed his psychiatric training with an internship at Bellevue Medical Center and residency at Massachusetts General Hospital. Before assuming leadership at Brown, he held progressive academic appointments at Harvard Medical School from 1973 to 1990, advancing from Clinical Fellow to Associate Professor of Psychiatry. His academic career has been defined by rigorous methodological approaches to understanding psychiatric disorders and their longitudinal course.
Dr. Keller pioneered standardized methods for assessing time to recovery, relapse, recurrence, and chronicity of mood and anxiety disorders, most notably developing the Longitudinal Interval Follow-Up Evaluation (LIFE), a tool that has been implemented in over 1,000 research programs internationally. His groundbreaking research established that mood and anxiety disorders are primarily chronic, recurrent, and disabling illnesses expressed across the lifespan rather than short-lived episodes, fundamentally shifting clinical understanding in the field. He first identified the phenomenon of 'double depression'—where approximately 25% of major depressive episodes occur superimposed on dysthymia—which proved to be more pernicious, chronic, and disabling than most other forms of major depressive disorder. His empirical work provided crucial evidence incorporated into the Surgeon General's report identifying depression as one of the most devastating public health problems.
Dr. Keller's influence extends beyond his methodological innovations to shaping clinical practice and public health policy through his identification of the serious undertreatment of major depressive disorder as early as 1982. He organized a consensus conference that concluded less than 10% of patients with major depressive disorder receive adequate treatment, highlighting critical gaps in mental healthcare delivery. Although he retired from Brown University in 2012 after stepping down as department chair in 2009, his research methodologies continue to inform contemporary psychiatric research and clinical assessment worldwide. His legacy includes not only his scientific contributions but also his role in establishing evidence-based frameworks that continue to guide the understanding and treatment of mood disorders across the medical community.
