Earlier this year, the department formed a new Research Council to provide a dedicated forum to address challenges and opportunities related to our research mission. To lead this new council, we are delighted to announce that Kate Comtois, PhD, MPH has agreed to serve as Vice Chair for Research beginning this fall.
 
In this new role, Dr. Comtois will provide strategic leadership by working closely with the chair and our faculty to identify emerging research opportunities and supporting innovation across diverse areas of research. She will also provide faculty mentorship and development, specifically for early and mid-career faculty in research careers. And she will work with department leadership to strengthen our research infrastructure and administrative operations. 
 
Dr. Comtois joined us as a trainee in the early 1990s and quickly progressed through the faculty ranks to become a professor in our department. For the last three decades, she has made consistent high impact contributions to our department as a clinician, a clinical researcher, and a research mentor. She brings tremendous institutional knowledge and research experience to this position and she has a strong desire to examine and advocate for ways that the department can support our research mission.
 
Among her many achievements and areas of expertise, Dr. Comtois specializes in suicidal thoughts and behavior, psychiatric disability and employment, and care for individuals with borderline personality disorder. She helped revolutionize the field of suicide prevention by developing game-changing interventions that have transformed how clinicians approach and treat patients with suicidal thoughts, behavior and risk. Her innovative work has equipped thousands of providers with effective tools to engage with high-risk individuals and save lives across diverse clinical settings. In addition to this new role, Dr. Comtois currently serves as a scientific advisor to AFSP and has received several AFSP grants, including a 2006 Distinguished Investigator Grant and a 2015 Focus Grant for her work on reducing short-term suicide risk after hospitalization.
 
We look forward to working with Dr. Comtois to support our faculty and advocate for the department’s research mission.