Clarice J. Kestenbaum, M.D. is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the Director of Training Emerita in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Past President of AACAP, she is renowned for her experience and insight into the evaluation of children and adolescents. Dr. Kestenbaum received her M.D. from UCLA Medical School and completed her residency in general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry at Columbia.  She is also a graduate of the Columbia Psychoanalytic Center for Training and Research in adult and child psychoanalysis.

Prior to her arrival at Columbia University, Dr. Kestenbaum served as Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital from 1971 to 1984. Her extensive hospital-based and outpatient clinical experience includes many years of working with Project Headstart. Dr. Kestenbaum is also considered to be an expert in child development and psychopathology as well as children-at-risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Kestenbaum has been acknowledged by many of her peers as one of psychiatry’s leading clinicians. A Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA, she is a recipient of the Distinguished Psychiatrist Award from the American Psychiatric Association, she has twice received the Exie Welsh Lectureship, as well as the Hulse Award from the New York Council on Child Psychiatry. She has also received the New York State Psychiatric Institute’s Alumni Award for Distinguished Work in Child Psychiatry. Dr. Kestenbaum received the Alexander Gralnick Award for Research in Schizophrenia from the Child Welfare League of America in appreciation of her efforts. Currently, Dr. Kestenbaum is a consultant to the Center of Prevention and Evaluation, a program that studies the prodrome of psychotic states. She is a co-founder of CARING at Columbia, an organization that helps inner city children-at-risk through the arts and literature.