The American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) has selected Howard Zonana, MD, Yale Professor of Psychiatry, to receive the 2012 Isaac Ray Award. This prestigious honor is based on Dr. Zonana's decades of demonstrated leadership and outstanding achievements in the field of forensic psychiatry.
The award will be presented to Zonana at the Convocation of Fellows at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in May 2012 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
In the 1970's Zonana co-founded Yale's Law and Psychiatry Division in response to consultations with law school faculty and students who represented Connecticut psychiatric patients in civil confinement hearings. Dr. Zonana remains the Division's Director. He has been a faculty member at Yale's School of Medicine since 1968 and is an adjunct professor at Yale's Law School.
He is widely credited with key contributions that have advanced the field of forensic psychiatry. In remarks published in the December 2011 volume of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, Kenneth L. Appelbaum, MD, a former forensic psychiatry fellow who trained with Dr. Zonana noted that Zonana's "contributions as a clinician, scholar, leader, and mentor over the past several decades have helped advance the maturation of forensic psychiatry and pave the way for its accreditation as a subspecialty."
Zonana has held various leadership positions in the area of forensic psychiatry in the APA and AAPL. In 2003, Dr. Zonana received the American Psychiatric Association Special Presidential Commendation in recognition of outstanding leadership in forensic psychiatry. Dr. Zonana is the current medical director and a past president (1992-1993) of AAPL. He received AAPL's 2006 Golden Apple Award for significant contributions to forensic psychiatry.
Beginning in 1952, the American Psychiatric Association has bestowed the Isaac Ray award in honor of Dr. Isaac Ray, one of the original founders and fourth President of the APA and the first American author in the field of legal issues connected with mental disorders.
For more information:
"Howard Zonana and the Subspecialty Maturation of Forensic Psychiatry", Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, December 2010