Altha Stewart, MD

Biography

Altha Stewart, MD is a leader and pioneer in her field. Dr. Stewart serves as senior associate dean for Community Health Engagement at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC). A nationally and internationally recognized expert in community and public health, mental health, trauma-informed care, and addressing health disparities, Dr. Stewart is also the founding director of the Center for Youth Advocacy and Well-Being (Center) and director of Public and Community Psychiatry at UTHSC.

 
In the latter role, Dr. Stewart leads the Department of Psychiatry’s efforts to create a community psychiatry division, through which the institution trains a community behavioral health workforce and increases access to family and peer support specialists, to ultimately assist youth and their families to navigate child-serving systems in Memphis and create a system of care for children’s mental health.

 
As inaugural dean for community health engagement she works on activities ranging from the university’s response to COVID-19 in marginalized and underserved communities, starting a community garden in collaboration with city government and creating relationships to improve health literacy, access to primary care health services, and overall health outcomes. Since joining the UTHSC faculty in 2015 as founding director, the Center has sponsored programs funded more than $15 million from federal, state, and private philanthropic sources. Current funded programs address mental health and trauma needs, public safety, youth crime and traumatic injuries resulting from community, gang, and gun violence; chronic pediatric medical conditions; and behavioral issues in educational settings that lead youth to become involved with the legal and law enforcement systems.

 
Dr. Stewart completed her residency at Drexel University in Philadelphia after receiving her medical degree from Temple University Medical School, where she was named distinguished alumna in 2023. Over a nearly 40-year career, she led several large public mental health systems —New York, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — before returning home to Memphis to develop the Center. In 2017, Dr. Stewart made history when she became the first African American elected president of the American Psychiatric Association in its 175-year history. She is currently president of the American Association for Community Psychiatry and a past president of the Black Psychiatrists of America, the Association of Women Psychiatrists, and the American Psychiatric Foundation.

 
Dr. Stewart is a current member of the state-funded Resilient Tennessee Collaborative and the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth, and was the only psychiatrist appointed to the Governor’s Task Force on School Safety following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. She has been recognized in 2018 with an honorary Doctor of Science degree from her alma mater, Christian Brothers University, where she now serves on the board of trustees. Dr. Stewart has received numerous awards, including the C. Charles Burlingame Award from the Institute of Living, the prestigious Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health, and Arlene Parsons Bennett, MD Health Equity Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She was awarded the Evelyn Lee Visiting Lectureship in Cultural Competence and Diversity at UC San Francisco, and the Luke & Grace Kim Visiting Professorship in Cultural Psychiatry at UC Davis). Dr. Stewart was the University of Maryland, Baltimore, Dana African American Visiting Professor, Psychiatry (2018 & 1999) and Visiting Professor, MGH Division of Public and Community Psychiatry (2017). She currently serves on the boards of various local and national professional, academic, nonprofit and advocacy organizations.