Ronald C. Kessler, Ph.D. Kessler, the McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, is a psychiatric epidemiologist who studies modifiable risk factors for mental disorders and suicide and evaluates innovative interventions for these outcomes. He is the Director of the WHO World Mental Health Survey Initiative and Co-Director of the WHO WMH International College Student Initiative as well as the HMS PI of the STARRS-LS research program on US Army suicide and the AURORA study of adverse neuropsychiatric reactions to traumatic life events. He is also collaborating with the VA Center of Excellence for Suicide Prevention in a series of targeted preventive interventions for Veteran suicides. Kessler is the author of over 800 scientific publications and has been the most widely cited researcher in the world in psychiatry for each of the past fifteen years. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.