Michael Norko, MD, MA

Dr. Michael Norko received his bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University (1979), his MD from SUNY – Upstate Medical Center (1983) and trained in psychiatry at St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center in New York (1983-97), during which he also completed a certificate program in mental health administration at the New School for Social Research (1987). He completed a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at Yale University in 1988 and has since then been a member of the faculty of the Law and Psychiatry Division at Yale/ Connecticut Mental Health Center, including 7 years as Deputy Training Director. Dr. Norko is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and Past President of the Connecticut Psychiatric Society. Dr. Norko worked at the Whiting Forensic Hospital (CT’s maximum security psychiatric hospital) for a total of 17 years; first as a unit chief and attending psychiatrist and later as Associate Director for Hospital Operations, Medical Director and Director/CEO. He has chaired the Committee on Institutional and Correctional Forensic Psychiatry of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL), was Editor of the AAPL Newsletter from 1996 to 2003, Deputy Editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (JAAPL) from 2003-2018; the Vice President of AAPL in 2005-2006 and President of AAPL in 2016-17. He has published and presented nationally and internationally on a variety of topics related to psychiatry and law, including his special interest in the use of the concepts of dangerousness and risk in psychiatric practice. He is currently Director of Forensic Services for the CT Dept of Mental Health & Addiction Services (since 2007), and Editor of JAAPL (since 2019). Dr. Norko earned a Master of Arts in Religion degree at the Yale Divinity School (2010), and has taught an elective course in the Department of Psychiatry on religion, spirituality, worldview and psychiatry. He chairs the Psychiatry and Religion Committee of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) and is Secretary of the Caucus on Spirituality, Religion and Psychiatry of the American Psychiatric Association.