Carol North, M.D.

Dr. Carol North holds The Nancy and Ray L. Hunt Chair in Crisis Psychiatry and is Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. She is also Director of the Division of Trauma and Disaster in the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. North completed medical school and residency training in psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, followed by an NIMH fellowship and a Masters degree, both in psychiatric epidemiology, at the same institution.  She served 18 years on the faculty of Washington University before moving to Dallas in 2005 to join the faculty at UT Southwestern. She also served for nearly ten years at the Dallas VA Medical Center.

For more than a quarter of a century, Dr. North has continuously conducted federally funded research into disaster mental health, psychiatric aspects of medical illness, and psychiatric problems of homeless populations, and has developed specialized education programs for professionals, patients, and families, while providing direct patient care and directing clinical services for homeless and seriously psychiatrically ill patients. Dr. North has been an international leader in shaping the science of disaster mental health epidemiology. She and her research team studied 3,500 survivors of major disasters that include the bombings in Oklahoma City and the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, the Capitol Hill anthrax attacks, the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, and Hurricane Katrina.  Dr. North has provided expertise and leadership in major disaster response operations, and a disaster mental health training program she developed (P-FLASH:  Practical Front Line Assistance and Support for Healing), originally commissioned by the September 11 Fund, has trained thousands of mental health and other medical and emergency professionals on disaster preparedness and response.

Dr. North has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific published articles, served on scientific editorial boards, and chaired and served on committees for federal grant review and for development of terrorism policy for the Institute of Medicine.  She testified to the US Senate, advised the State Department, the Carter Center, and the White House on disaster mental health; informed the FDA about post-traumatic stress; provided consultation to New York City’s Department of Health on post-9/11 mental health response; and served on a CDC Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee for the World Trade Center Health Program and on the CDC Board of Scientific Counselors, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response.