Dr. Kennedy is Professor and Vice Chair for Education of the Department Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Director, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry and the Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Training Program, Montefiore Medical Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine. More than sixty psychiatrists with subspecialty training in geriatrics have graduated from the program. He has authored numerous publications on late life mental health and has given a number of invited presentations to educational, scientific and public policy organizations in the United States and abroad.
His research has focused on cardiac arrhythmias, the epidemiology of depression and dementia, mental health care in nursing homes, primary care sites and in the community, and novel communications approaches between health care providers. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the Forchheimer Foundation, The New York Foundation for Elder Care, the Resnick Gerontology Center, the New York State Department of Health, United Jewish Appeal-Federation, the JE & ZB Butler Foundation, The University Place Foundation, the Irving Weinstein Foundation, The Goldstein Foundation, The United Hospital Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The New York Community Trust have supported his work.
He has served as a consultant to the New York State Commission on Life and the Law regarding physician-assisted suicide and to the Law Revision Commission regarding guardianship procedures in New York State’s mental health law. He was also a member of the New York State Department of Health Advisory Work Group on Human Subject Research Involving Protected Classes. He has been a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Aging, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry and was the 2002 President of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. For the National Institute of Mental Health he was a member of the Mental Disorders of Aging Initial Review Group and Chairperson, Small Business Innovative Research Program Contract Reviews. He has also been a member of the Antidepressants and Suicidality Review Panel, and the Interventions Committee for Adult Disorders Review Group. In 2003 he was invited to testify before the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. He is a Fellow of the Brookdale Center on Aging of Hunter College, The New York Academy of Medicine, and The American Psychiatric Association. He has received a New Investigator Award from the National Institute of Health, a travel study fellowship to Israel and the United Kingdom from the United States World Health Organization, an Archstone Award for Program Innovation from the American Public Health Association, an Annual Exemplary Psychiatrists Award, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. The American Journal of Nursing cited his Geriatric Mental Health Care published in 2000 as one of the best books of the year on gerontology. In 2014 he received the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2019 he became an honoree of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, Montefiore Health System & Albert Einstein College of Medicine. His most recent book is Geriatric Depression: A Clinical Guide from The Guilford Press, 2015. He was also the 2005-2007 chair of the Geriatric Mental Health Foundation, a Washington based 501c3 group advocating for the mental health and wellbeing of older Americans. In 2005 he was a Visiting Professor for the Geriatric Fellowship Training Program of the National Health Research Institute of Taiwan. In 2006 he was sponsored by The Atlantic Philanthropies to design a Bermuda specific geriatric mental health training program. In 2009 he was part of a seven person Professional Exchange Program sponsored by the Caring Commission of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York and JDC-ESHEL, The Association for the Planning and Development of Services for the Aged in Israel. Since 1992 he has been listed as one of “The Best Doctors in America”. He has appeared on National Public Radio, the Today Show with Katie Couric, and ABC’s World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer.
Born in Dallas, Dr. Kennedy is an alumnus of the University of Texas in Austin and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.