Robert Trestman, M.D., Ph.D., executive director of Correctional Managed Health Care, has agreed to also serve as interim director of the cross-campus Center for Public Health and Health Policy (CPHHP). He succeeds Ann Ferris, Ph.D. R.D., who is retiring after 37 years of service to the University of Connecticut but continuing part-time to lead her research team.
CPHHP, now in its tenth year, coordinates public health-related activities within the University. CPHHP is a leader in health policy analysis and research, population health management and evaluation, and has developed and deployed tools to integrate and analyze large public health data sets.
Dr. Trestman’s diverse background in medicine and administration are an excellent fit for the CPHHP. He received his Ph.D. in Psychology and M.D. from the University of Tennessee, and trained in psychiatry and neurobiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. Dr. Trestman has served as clinical vice-chair of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center and at the UConn Health Center, studied the neurobiology and treatment of people with severe mood and personality disorders, and conducts translational research on correctional health.
He has published over 140 articles and book chapters and is the senior editor of the forthcoming Oxford Textbook of Correctional Psychiatry in which he contributed eight of 72 chapters. Dr. Trestman has also been newly appointed to the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.
Recently, he was named chair of the Board of Directors of the Children’s Fund of Connecticut, a collaboration of UConn Health, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, and Yale. Dr. Trestman is also chair of the American Psychiatric Association Work Group on Persons with Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System, consults to the National Institute of Mental Health, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Vera Institute of Justice.