Helen Blair Simpson, M.D./PH.D.
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Director of the Anxiety DIsorders Clinic

Director, Anxiety Disorders Clinic,
New York State Psychiatric Institute

 

 

Helen Blair Simpson, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the College of Physician and Surgeons of Columbia University and the Director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Simpson’s research program focuses on how to improve treatments for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related disorders so that these people can live productive lives. Her research is interdisciplinary. It ranges from treatment development studies to clinical trials examining the effects of medication and cognitive-behavioral therapy to brain imaging studies exploring the brain mechanisms of OCD to animal studies in collaboration with basic scientists. Her work has been funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health and private foundations like the Obsessive Compulsive Foundation and NARSAD. She was a member of the workgroup that developed the first Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Patients with OCD for the American Psychiatric Association. She is an Advisor to the DSM-5 Workgroup on OCD and Related Disorders.

Dr. Simpson graduated from Yale College with a BS in biology. She then completed the MD-PhD program at The Rockefeller University/Cornell University Medical College. Her PhD focused on the brain pathways underlying learned versus unlearned vocalizations in songbirds. She then completed the internship and residency in psychiatry at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Simpson has been associated with the Anxiety Disorders Clinic since 1996, first as a National Institutes of Mental Health Research Fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Michael Liebowitz, then as an independent researcher and Director of the Obsessive-Compulsive Research Program, and now as Director of the Anxiety Disorders Clinic since 2006.

Education and Training

Undergraduate:  Yale University, B.S., 1984
Medical School:  The Rockefeller University--Cornell University Medical College M.D.-Ph.D. Program, M.D./Ph.D., 1992
Internship:  Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Medicine, 1992 - 1993
Residency:  Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, Psychiatry, 1993 - 1996
Fellowship:  New York Presbyterian Hospital/New York State Psychiatric Institute, Therapeutics/Anxiety Disorders, 1996 - 1999
Board Certifications:  American Board in Psychiatry and Neurology

Specialties

• Anxiety disorders
• OCD

Click here for Dr. Simpson's Clinical Trials

Contact information

Address:
NYS Psychiatric Institute
1051 Riverside Drive
New York, NY   10032

Phone: 212-543-5367
Fax: 212-543-6515
hbs1@columbia.edu

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