Robert Haim Belmaker MD

Dr. Belmaker received his BA from Harvard College in 1967 and his MD from Duke Medical School in 1971. Since 1974 he has held positions in academic psychiatry in Israel, first at the Jerusalem Mental Health Center 1974-1984 and then at Ben Gurion University of the Negev 1985 to the present. Dr. Belmaker was a pioneer in biological psychiatry in Israel and chaired the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology (CINP) meeting in Jerusalem in 1982. His research interests include affective disorders, especially mania, ECT, and second messenger mechanisms. He has received the Anna Monika Prize for Research in Depression (1983), the Ziskind-Sommerfeld Prize for Senior Research in Psychiatry (1993), the ECNP Research Award (1996), and the NARSAD Falcone Award for research in affective disorder (2000), and the Research Prize of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (2004). He was President of the CINP 2008-2010 (International College of Neuropsychopharmacology) and Vice-President of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD) 2012-2014. In 2015-2018 he was President of the Israel Psychiatric Association. In 2013-2015 he was President of the International Neuropsychiatry Association.

Dr. Belmaker has published over 400 articles and chapters and edited 18 books. He served a maximum term of 10 years as Chairman of his Department of Psychiatry. Between 1994-2012 he served as Deputy Director of the Mental Health Center in Beer Sheva. He was the psychiatric hospital representative of the Soroka Hospital Helsinki Committee from 1987-2012. From 2004-2014 he was a member of the Clinical Trials Committee of the Ministry of Health.

He has not lost touch with clinical medicine and in addition to being an inpatient unit head until 1994, he opened a public Bipolar Disorders clinic 45 years ago. He continues now to see patients weekly at the clinic at his private practice in Modiin.