Beatrix A. (Betty) Hamburg, MD, a pioneering adolescent psychiatrist and the first African-American woman graduate of Yale School of Medicine, died April 15 at her daughter’s home in Washington, DC. She was 94.
Dr. Hamburg completed medical school at Yale in 1948 and worked for six decades to advance the field of adolescent psychiatry.
She performed groundbreaking work on peer counseling, the health and mental health status of minority populations, and the critical role of early development in physical and mental health. She recognized early adolescence as a distinctive and critical developmental period, and performed clinical research on school-based programs for conflict resolution and violence prevention.
She developed the concept of peer counseling as head of child psychiatry at Stanford University, and continued her work at Mt. Sinai and Cornell University.
She also played an important role in influencing public policy as President of the William T. Grant Foundation, a member of the President's Commission on Mental Health under President Carter, a member of the IOM, and as co-author, with her husband, psychiatrist David A. Hamburg, MD, of “Learning to Live Together,” teaching children not to hate.
The Hamburgs met at Yale in 1948, and forged parallel career paths in the field of mental health. They jointly studied human coping processes under severe stress — from physical stress to mental illness, severe depression, poverty, and war.
In 2015, the Hamburgs were awarded The Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. The award recognizes people whose extraordinary contribution has made a profound and lasting impact in advancing the understanding of mental health and improving the lives of people who suffer from mental illness.