Jerome C. Wakefield, PhD, DSW is University Professor, Professor of Social Work, and Professor of Psychiatry, as well as Affiliate Faculty in Bioethics and in
                                    the Center For Ancient
                                    Studies, at New York University, and Lecturer in Psychiatry (Biometrics Unit) at Columbia University College of Physicians
                                    and Surgeons. He has previously held faculty positions at University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Rutgers University.
                                    He holds two doctorates, in social work and philosophy, and a master’s degree in mathematics with a specialization in
                                    logic and methodology of science, all from University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of over 130 publications
                                    appearing in journals in psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and social work. His scholarship focuses on the
                                    conceptual foundations of the mental health professions, especially the concept of mental disorder and the validity of diagnostic
                                    criteria for mental disorders, and more generally on the intersection of philosophy and psychology.

……………………………………………………………………..

Sunilkumar K. Pandya, eminent Neurosurgeon and thinker on medical ethics, joined the Grant Medical College in 1957 and trained at the Sir J.J. Group of Hospitals, Mumbai. He obtained the M.B.B.S. (1961) and M.S. (1965). He joined Dr. Homi Dastur at the Department of Neurosurgery, Seth G. S. Medical College and K. E. M. Hospital in 1967 as a Pool Officer and was appointed to the staff as Assistant Neurosurgeon in 1968. In 1975, on Dr. Dastur’s retirement, he was appointed Professor of Neurosurgery. He retired on superannuating in 1998 and has, since, worked at the Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, Mumbai. He is Editor Emeritus, IJME (Indian Journal of Medical Ethics); and Journal Ombudsman, JPGM (Journal of Postgraduate Medicine).

………………………………………………….

George E. Vaillant is a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital.  Dr. Vaillant has spent his research career charting adult development and the recovery process of schizophrenia, heroin addiction, alcoholism, and personality disorder.  He has spent the last 35 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development at the Harvard University Health Service.  The study has prospectively charted the lives of 824 men and women for over 60 years.  His published works include Adaptation to Life, 1977; The Wisdom of The Ego, 1993; and, The Natural History of Alcoholism-Revisited, 1995.  His summary of the lives of men and women from adolescence to age 80, called Aging Well, was published by Little, Brown in 2002.  His latest book Faith, Hope and Joy: The Neurobiology of Positive Emotions is in press.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Vaillant did his residency at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and completed his psychoanalytic training at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. He has been a Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, is a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists. He has been an invited speaker and consultant for seminars and workshops throughout the world.  A major focus of his work in the past has been to develop ways of studying defense mechanisms empirically. More recently he has been interested in successful aging, positive emotions, and spirituality. He is on the steering committee of Positive Psychology.

Dr. Vaillant has received the Foundations Fund Prize for Research in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association, the Strecker Award from the Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital, the Burlingame Award from The Institute for Living, and the Jellinek Award for research in alcoholism. He has twice received research prizes from the International Psychogeriatric Society. Most recently, he received the distinguished service award from the American Psychiatric Association.  

………………………………………

David Healy is a Professor of Psychiatry at Cardiff University.  He studied medicine in University College Dublin, Ireland, and at Cambridge University. He is a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and author of over 140 peer reviewed articles, 200 other pieces and 15 books, including The Antidepressant Era, and The Creation of Psychopharmacology from Harvard University Press, The Psychopharmacologists Volumes 1-3, and Let Them Eat Prozac from New York University Press. 

His main areas of research are clinical trials in psychopharmacology, and the history of psychopharmacology.

He has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in bringing problems with these drugs to the attention of American and British regulators, as well raising awareness of how pharmaceutical companies sell drugs by marketing diseases and co-opting academic opinion-leaders, ghost-writing their articles.

……………………………………………………….

Till his retirement in 1996, Dr. Vijoy K. Varma was the Professor (1982-96) and Head (1980-96) of Psychiatry at the prestigious Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India.  He is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (UK), American Psychiatric Association, and National Academy of Medical Sciences (India).  He has won virtually all awards in psychiatry and mental health at the national level in India, major among which have been Dr. D.L.N. Murti Rao Oration Award, Dr. B.C. Roy National Award as an eminent medical teacher, Dr. Vidya Sagar Award of the ICMR for research in mental health, the Platinum Jubilee Lecture of the Indian Science Congress, and Dr. N.N De Oration Award. 

Dr. Varma has been a Visiting Professor at a number of universities, including those in the U.K., the U.S.A., India, Libya and Lithuania.  Currently, he is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA (since 1997).  He has also been an Honorary Consultant in Psychiatry to the Indian Armed Forces.     

Dr. Varma has executed 37 funded research projects, including 10 WHO projects.  He has, to his credit, 231 publications, including four books, ten monographs and 22 book chapters.

Dr. Varma has been the President of the Indian Psychiatric Society (1989-90), and the Indian Association for Social Psychiatry (1992-94), and was the Congress President of the 13th World Congress of Social Psychiatry (1992).  More recently, he was the Secretary of the World Psychiatric Association Transcultural Psychiatry Section (1999-2002).

 …………………………………………….

Søren Holm, BA, MA, MD, PhD, DrMedSci is Professorial Fellow in Bioethics and Director of the Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society at the University of Cardiff, UK, as well as Professor of Medical Ethics at the Centre for Medical Ethics at the University of Oslo, Norway.

He holds degrees in medicine, philosophy, and health care ethics, and two doctoral degrees in medical ethics.

He is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics and of book series for Oxford University Press and Ashgate.

He has interests in many areas of medical ethics and philosophy of medicine and is currently President-Elect of the European Society for the Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care.

………………………………………………………………….

Helen Herrman is Professor in Public Health and Psychiatry at the Australian International Health Institute, University of Melbourne. From 1992 to 2005 she was Professor and Director of Psychiatry in St. Vincent's Mental Health Service Melbourne. She is Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for research and training in mental health at the University of Melbourne and St Vincent's Health. For a year in 2001-2002 she was acting regional adviser in mental health for the WHO's Western Pacific Region. She is Secretary for Publications and member of the Executive Committee of the World Psychiatric Association and Vice-President of the International Federation of Psychiatric Epidemiology.

………………………………………

Lynne Layton is Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School. She has taught culture and psychoanalysis for Harvard's Committee on Degrees in Social Studies and teaches at the Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. She is the author of Who's That Girl? Who's That Boy? Clinical Practice Meets Postmodern Gender Theory (Analytic Press, 2004); co-editor, with Susan Fairfield and Carolyn Stack, of Bringing the Plague. Toward a Postmodern Psychoanalysis (Other Press, 2002); and co-editor, with Nancy Caro Hollander and Susan Gutwill, of Psychoanalysis, Class and Politics: Encounters in the Clinical Setting (Routledge, 2006). She is Editor of Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society and associate editor of Studies in Gender and Sexuality. Her private practice of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy is in Brookline, Ma, USA.

……………………………………

James (Jim) Wright is a Professor in the Departments of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Medicine at the University of BC, Vancouver, Canada.  He is also Director of the High Blood Pressure Clinic, Vancouver Hospital (UBC Site), Managing Director of the Therapeutics Initiative, Editor-in-Chief of the Therapeutics Letter and Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Hypertension Review Group. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Open Medicine and PLoS One. 

Dr. Wright obtained his MD from the University of Alberta in 1968 and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from McGill University in 1976.  He is a practicing specialist in Internal Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology.

Dr. Wright's research focuses on issues related to appropriate use of prescription drugs, Clinical Pharmacology, clinical trials, systematic review, meta-analysis and knowledge translation. 

…………………………………………………….