GALVESTON, Texas - The American Psychiatric Association has recognized Dr. Karen Dineen Wagner, vice chairwoman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, with its prestigious Blanche F. Ittleson Award for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for 2007.
Established in 1976, the Ittleson award honors a researcher or group of researchers who have published important work about mental health and mental illness in children. Wagner received the award for her research and publications about mood disorders in children and adolescents which have advanced evidence-based treatment in the field, said Elizabeth B. Weller, chairwoman of the Ittleson award committee.
Wagner, Marie B. Gale Centennial Professor and director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Temple University in Philadelphia. She received her M.D. from the medical school at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and performed her residency in psychiatry with Harvard Medical School at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. She then completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry with Harvard Medical School at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass.
An internationally recognized expert in the pharmacological treatment for childhood mood and anxiety disorders, Wagner was awarded an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Science) from the State University of New York in 2004 for her contributions to the field of child psychiatry. She has served in leadership positions in professional organizations and as a member of the National Institute of Mental Health Advisory Council.
She will receive the Ittleson Award at the American Psychiatric Association's Convocation of Distinguished Fellows on May 5 during the APA's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.