Michael Sernyak, M.D., HS

Michael Sernyak, M.D., HS ’87, professor of psychiatry, was appointed director of the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC), effective July 1. Sernyak was nominated by Yale University and appointed by Thomas Kirk, Ph.D., the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Sernyak, who replaces the retiring Selby Jacobs, M.D., served as unit chief of the Psychosis Studies Unit at CMHC for five years. In 1996 he joined the staff at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven and in 2001 was appointed chief of the psychiatry service. Sernyak is a nationally recognized health services researcher who specializes in treatment issues of the severely mentally ill. His most recent areas of focus have been the development of such metabolic abnormalities as diabetes and the delivery of medical care in patients with schizophrenia.