James C. Harris was awarded the Leon Eisenberg award for outstanding leadership and stewardship in the field of mental health and disabilities from Harvard University in 2011.
BALTIMORE, MD, September 27, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present James Harris, MD, with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Harris celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all considered during the selection process.
Following an internship in Pediatrics after his medical school graduation, Dr. Harris began his medical career in the United States Public Health Service assigned as Peace Corps Staff Physician in Thailand from 1967 to 1970. Following this assignment, he completed residency training in Pediatrics and General Psychiatry and fellowships in Child Psychiatry and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities. After completion of residency and fellowship training he joined the faculty as assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, in 1976. He is triple board certified in pediatrics, general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. Dr. Harris began his career as a Johns Hopkins faculty member as founding director of Developmental Neuropsychiatry at the John F. Kennedy Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Mentally and Physically Handicapped Child (now the Kennedy Krieger Institute). From 1978 to 1982 he was appointed Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. In that capacity he incorporated the Kennedy Institute psychiatry program into the Hopkins Division. As Division Chief he also established the consultation and liaison service in Pediatrics in the Hopkins Children's Center. From 1982 to 1989 he continued his career with Johns Hopkins University as Director of Education for the division of child and adolescent psychiatry. From 1986 to 1988 he served as the first elected president of the medical staff at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. From 1982 to 1997 he was an associate professor of psychiatry, mental hygiene and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University. From 1983 to 1992, he held positions as co-director of the Autism Clinic at the Kennedy Institute (now the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities) and the Johns Hopkins Children's Center Sleep Disorders Clinic. Since 1976, he has been the director of developmental neuropsychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and currently directs the Johns Hopkins Developmental Neuropsychiatry Clinic. He received joint appointments in the department of mental hygiene in the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1985 and in the Hopkins Department of History of Medicine in 2015. Dr. Harris has been a full professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University since 1997.
Prior to embarking on his career, Dr. Harris received a Bachelor of Science degree cum laude from the University of Maryland in 1962. Following this achievement, he earned a Doctor of Medicine degree from the George Washington University in Washington, DC, in 1966. He completed his pediatric internship at Children's Hospital of Los Angeles in 1966, his first year of residency in pediatrics at the University of Rochester in 1971 and his final year of pediatric residency at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1972. He was a general and child psychiatry resident at Hopkins Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic in Baltimore from 1972-1976. Concurrently he was a neurodevelopmental disability fellow at the John F. Kennedy Institute in 1973-1974.
Dr. Harris worked one day a week as an adjunct scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Laboratory for Brain Evolution and Behavior (Paul MacLean, Chief) in Poolesville, MD, from 1978 to 1984. Following this appointment, he was an adjunct scientist with the Laboratory of Comparative Ethology (Steve Suomi, Chief) at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) from 1984 to 1993. In 1998, he was a visiting professor at the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals in London, England. Dr. Harris served as a visiting professor for the University of Hawaii in 1999 and 2007, the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 2016, Monash University and the University of Melbourne Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, in 2017, and Yangon 1 School of Medicine in Yangon, Myanmar, since 2015. In 1999, he was active as a member of the White House conference on mental health. He was a consultant at the University of Illinois, Chicago from 2003 to 2011. Throughout his career he has been actively involved in disability rights advocacy at both a national and international level. From 2000 to 2008, he was advisor and consultant to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the director of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation. From 2000-2002, he was a member of the President's Committee for People with Mental Retardation (now the President's Committee for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities). From 2001 to 2002 he was a visiting research scientist at the University of Chicago and scholar at the Institute for Mind and Biology at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Harris has been productive in research. He received an NICHD R-01 Research Grant Award in 1997. This NIH sponsored research focuses on Developmental Pathways from Genes to Cognition and Complex Behavior in Lesch Nyhan Syndrome (LNS). His collaborative PET scan studies were the first to document the in vivo dopamine deficit associated with self-injury in LNS. Subsequent research has examined the cognitive and motor deficits in LNS, the extended behavioral phenotype, and relationship of these deficits to GPRT deficiency. Currently his most recently funded research focuses on understanding the Neurodevelopmental basis of social behaviors and empathy. His studies of the oxytocin polymorphisms and oxytocin receptor methylation have demonstrated relationships to positive emotional expression and to postpartum mood disorders. For 9 years he received Training Grant support in Child Psychiatry as NIMH Principal Investigator. He has received funding from the Fetzer Institute to study oxytocin pathways in Loving Kindness Meditation. His career teaching and research led to the establishment of the James C. Harris leadership fund and permanent endowment. Its goal is to establish an endowed chair, the James C. Harris chair in Developmental Neuropsychiatry, at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Dr. Harris is a fellow of the American Psychopathological Association, the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the American College of Psychiatrists. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He is the US representative for the International Society for the Study of Behavioral Phenotypes and a member or past member of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the Society for Neuroscience, the American Association of Directors of Psychiatrics Residency Training, and the Maryland Psychiatric Society. From 1998-2000 he served as president of the American Association of Directors of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, where he currently chairs the emeritus committee. He is the author of 4 textbooks with Oxford University Press and a regular contributor of articles to professional journals with over 275 publications. His Oxford University Press books include the 2 volume "Developmental Neuropsychiatry: Fundamentals" and "Developmental Neuropsychiatry: Assessment, Diagnosis and Treatment," published in 1995, "Intellectual Disability: Understanding its Development, Causes, Classification, Evaluation and Treatment," published in 2006, and "Intellectual Disability: A Guide for Families and Professionals," published in 2010. He was on the editorial board of the Journal of Child Neurology from 2001 to 2008 and the Archives of General Psychiatry/JAMA Psychiatry Editorial Board from 2002 to 2018. Since 2014, Dr. Harris has been editor for neurodevelopmental disorders for Current Opinion in Psychiatry. Dr. Harris was art and images editor for Archives of General Psychiatry/JAMA Psychiatry from 2002-2014. He chose the journal cover each month and published 146 commentaries on the interface of Psychiatry and the Humanities (https://sites.jamanetwork.com/art-and-images-in-psychiatry/).
From 1964 to 1965, Dr. Harris was the recipient of a Trainee Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. He received the Pollen Award from George Washington University for medical student expertise in psychiatry in 1965. In 1965 he was awarded the AAMC/Smith Kline & French Foreign Fellowship to work with CARE/MEDICO in Kuala Lipis and Gombak, Malaysia. In 1995, he won the Doody Medical Book of the Year Award for his 2 volume "Developmental Neuropsychiatry, The Fundamentals and, Developmental Neuropsychiatry: Assessment Diagnosis and Treatment." The books were chosen medical book of the year for setting the agenda for a new specialty in psychiatry and selected among 2,300 books in 76 medical specialties. In 1989, 1996, 1998, and 1999 he was recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. In 1999, he was honored with the George Tarjan Award by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Harris was celebrated by being chosen member of the President's Committee for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities for 2000 and 2001. The Committee is advisor to the President of the United States and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. In 2007, he was recipient of the Agnes Purcell McGavin Award for distinguished career achievement from the American Psychiatric Association.
Dr. Harris was awarded the Leon Eisenberg award for outstanding leadership and stewardship in the field of mental health and disabilities from Harvard University in 2011. In 2012 he gave the Richard Heyler Award Lecture at UCLA. In 2014 he gave the Seeyle Visiting Professor Lecture in Auckland, New Zealand. In 2015, he received the Frank J. Menolascino Award from the American Psychiatric Association for Services to People with Intellectual Developmental Disorders. He was selected to give the Alhambra Lecture on Neurodevelopmental Disabilities at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH, in 2016 and the Tom Oppe Lecture at Society for the Study of Behavioral Phenotypes International Research Symposium held in Leiden, the Netherlands, in 2017. In 2017, he was also presented with the Catcher in the Rye Award for outstanding advocacy, leadership and mentorship in advancing the field of child and adolescent psychiatry by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Harris has previously been selected for inclusion in multiple editions of Who's Who in Finance and Industry, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in the East and Who's Who in the World.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Dr. Harris has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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