Robert Althoff, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of Psychiatry, UVM Larner College of Medicine (Courtesy photo)

University of Vermont Associate Professor of Psychiatry Robert Althoff, M.D., Ph.D., has been appointed chair of the Department of Psychiatry and health care service leader for psychiatry following a national search, effective August 1, 2022. Althoff has served as interim chair of the department since October 1, 2021, succeeding Professor of Psychiatry Robert Pierattini, M.D.

Althoff joined the UVM faculty and UVM Health Network Medical Group in 2006 and since 2017 has served as medical director for psychiatry at the UVM Health Network-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital (CVPH), and division chief, Adirondack Division, in the Department of Psychiatry. In addition to his work at CVPH, Althoff has been involved in clinical care across the network, working clinically at the UVM Medical Center and Central Vermont Medical Center, and collaborating with Alice Hyde Medical Center, in Malone, N.Y., Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, Vt., and Elizabethtown Community Hospital in New York. From 2014 to 2017, he was executive vice president of UVM's Vermont Center for Children, Youth and Families.

A national leader in child and adolescent psychiatry, Althoff specializes in research on the development of emotional self-regulation in children. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and is an associate editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.  He teaches undergraduate, graduate, and medical students along with residents and fellows, and mentors Ph.D. students in his laboratory, and has twice received awards for Excellence in Academic Teaching within the UVM psychiatry residency.

“Never have the challenges of delivering psychiatric care been so great, or the need for partnerships and innovations more important,” stated Larner College of Medicine Dean Richard L. Page, M.D., and Jason Sanders, M.D., M.B.A., senior associate dean for clinical affairs and president and CEO of the UVM Health Network Medical Group, in a joint announcement to members of the UVM community. “We are confident in Dr. Althoff’s experience and talents to lead our teams to meet those challenges.”

Althoff received his M.D. from the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He completed an internship and residency in pediatrics/child neurology at Washington University School of Medicine/St. Louis (Mo.) Children's Hospital, and a residency in psychiatry at UVM, followed by a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General and McLean Hospitals.

Pamela Gibson, M.D., associate professor and vice chair in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, and Gregory Holmes, M.D., Ph.D., chair of neurological sciences, co-led the chair of psychiatry search committee.