"All science and research advances in mental health have one single purpose - to improve the lives of people at risk of or experiencing mental illness. Thus, NAMI and NAMI members can and should have the largest voice because they have the most to offer and most to gain. Working with NAMI to make science and research better is a privilege."
John Torous, MD, MBI, is director of the digital psychiatry division in the Department of Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), a Harvard Medical School-affiliated teaching hospital, where he also serves as a staff psychiatrist and associate professor.
He has a background in electrical engineering and computer sciences and received an undergraduate degree in the field from UC Berkeley before attending medical school at UC San Diego. He completed his psychiatry residency, fellowship in clinical informatics, and master’s degree in biomedical informatics at Harvard University.
Dr. Torous is active in investigating the potential of mobile mental health technologies for psychiatry. His team supports mindapps.org as the largest database of mental health apps, the mindLAMP technology platform for scalable digital phenotyping and intervention, and the Digital Navigator program to promote digital equity and access. Dr. Torous has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles and five book chapters on the topic. He directs the Digital Psychiatry Clinic at BIDMC, which seeks to improve access to and quality of mental health care by augmenting treatment with digital innovations. Dr. Torous serves as editor-in-chief of the journal JMIR Mental Health, web editor for JAMA Psychiatry, and a member of various American Psychiatric Association committees.
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