Anna Yusim
Anna Yusim is a Russian-American psychiatrist, educator, executive coach, and academic who is known for her research and advocacy in global mental health reform. She is a Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine and was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association in 2020.
Early life and education
Yusim was born in Moscow, Russia, to parents Leonid and Alla Yusim. Her family emigrated to the United States in 1982 when Yusim was five years old. She grew up in Chicago, where her father worked as a biomedical engineer and her mother worked as a computer programmer.She attended the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy for high school, where she later received the IMSA Alumni Trailblazer Award. She then attended Stanford University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biological Sciences and double Honors in Biology and Philosophy / Ethics. She was awarded the Hoefer Prize at Stanford University for the essay written in the Social Sciences entitled, "Cigarettes, Poverty, and the Inadequacy of Desert: A Philosophical Quest for Justice in Health Care". Her Philosophy / Ethics thesis was awarded The Golden Award for thesis written in the Humanities and Creative Arts.
She completed her Medical Degree at Yale School of Medicine, where she received the Janet M. Glasgow-Rubin Award for women physicians with high academic achievement, the Max Kade Fellowship and the William F. Downs Fellowship for International Research. She then went on to complete her psychiatry residency at NYU Langone Health, where she received the Outstanding Research Resident Award from the National Institute of Mental Health, APIRE/Janssen Research Award, the American Psychoanalytic Association Fellowship, the Columbia Psychoanalytic Fellowship. During her residency training, she conducted research in Rwanda and wrote for the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Her academic work has included neuroscience research on the effects of stress on the brain with Robert Sapolsky, global mental health research in countries including rural Ecuador, the relationship between heart disease and depression, binaural beat meditation treatment for anxiety, and various publications on psychiatric medication, rare thyroid disorders.
Career
Currently she is a faculty member at Yale School of Medicine, where she co-founded the Mental Health & Spirituality Program, an initiative that bridges the Yale Medical School and the Yale Divinity School through research, education and clinical care.She is the Chief Medical Officer of Conscious Health, a holistic mental health clinic that integrates contemporary psychiatric treatments such as ketamine therapy, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and electromagnetic brain pulsing. She has also evaluated a psychospiritual-existential framework known as the Discovery Model,” which is currently under study at Yale University.
Yusim also serves as the Medical Lead for SuperMind, a Miami-based mental health start-up. She sits on the boards of several mental health organizations, including Being Health, Pause + Purpose, the Lifeboat Foundation, and the Mental Health TV Network.
In addition to her clinical and research activities, Yusim works as an executive coach with the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches Agency. Her commentary and writing on mental health have appeared in outlets such as Forbes and Newsweek.