2023: Marilyn B. Benoit, MD

Marilyn B. Benoit, MD is the past Chief Medical/Chief Clinical Officer and SVP of Clinical and Professional Affairs of Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health. She attended Georgetown University Medical School, where she is a Clinical Associate Professor. She is also a Clinical Associate Professor at Drexel Medical School. She holds a graduate degree in Health Services, Management & Policy from The George Washington University School of Public Health.

Dr. Benoit’s career includes academia, where she provided decades of training to medical students, psychiatric and pediatric residents and fellows. She has worked in both the public and private sectors and maintains a small private practice to date. She is currently the child psychiatrist consultant to a therapeutic day school for students with severe emotional disabilities.

She is past President of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (2001-2003). Her presidential initiative focused on improving outcomes for children in foster care. Dr. Benoit engaged the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Child Welfare League of America as leaders in this initiative, which involved 70 national child serving organizations, and federal government policy makers.

She has served on several non-profit Boards, including The Field Center of Social Work & Social Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, the Child Welfare League of America, Devereux Behavioral Health, the Alliance for Childhood, which she co-founded and chaired, and Talisman Therapeutic Riding. She is currently a Trustee of the Chance Academy, a private non-profit school for underprivileged children in Washington, DC, and is the Chairwoman of Supporting Lifelong Solutions, a Northwest Arkansas non-profit that addresses the holistic needs of adults with autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities. Her professional work includes many pro bono hours dedicated to providing mental health education to schools, social work agencies, and communities of lay persons in her dedication to improving the mental health in the communities where she has lived and worked. Dr. Benoit is Co-Chair of the Life members Committee of AACAP. She has been awarded Georgetown University’s President’s Vicennial Award for 20 plus years of dedicated service, AACAP Virginia Q Anthony’s Women in Leadership award, the AACAP Jeanne Spurlock Diversity Award, AACAP Mentorship Award, the Child Maltreatment Committee’s Passion Award and has an AACAP endowed Marilyn B. Benoit Child Maltreatment award for child psychiatry trainees and early career child psychiatrists funded by a generous donor.

Dr. Benoit is the proud grandmother of five children, two having been adopted from foster care. Dr. Benoit has published and presented nationally and internationally on topics pertaining to child development and mental health, including child maltreatment, ADHD, psychotherapy, family engagement. She led transformative and sustainable clinical improvement across a large national behavioral health organization.

2017: Benard P. Dreyer, MD, FAAP

Benard P. Dreyer, MD, FAAP is the recipient of the 2017 Abraham L. Halpern Humanitarian Award of the American Association for Social Psychiatry. 

                      Benard P. Dreyer, MD, FAAP

Dr. Dreyer is a general and development-behavioral pediatrician who has spent his professional lifetime serving poor children and families. He is a Professor of Pediatrics at NYU, where he leads the Division of Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics, serves as the Director of Pediatrics at Bellevue Hospital, and also works as a hospitalist. After graduation from NYU School of Medicine and chief residency at Jacobi Hospital, he stayed as Director of Emergency Medicine, starting the first                  Emergency Medicine Residency in NY State.

Dr. Dreyer is the immediate past-president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). He serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Section on LGBT Health and Wellness and the AAP Leadership Workgroup on Poverty and Child Health.  Dr. Dreyer was also president of the Academic Pediatric Association (APA), and founded and chairs the APA Task Force on Childhood Poverty and the APA Research Scholars Program. He also hosts a weekly radio show on the Sirius XM Doctor Radio Channel, On Call for Kids. 

For over 30 years he led a primary care program at Bellevue, including co-located mental and oral health services and clinics in homeless shelters. His research is focused on interventions in primary care to improve early childhood outcomes, including early brain development and obesity. His work on addressing childhood poverty as President of the AAP caps a career of public service.  He has fully engaged pediatricians in this effort and hopes to enjoin the rest of the house of medicine—including psychiatry--to participate in this extraordinary campaign for a healthy future for the nation.  

2015: Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA

2012: Robert J. Lipton, MD

Dr. Robert Jay Lifton was honored by the American Association for Social Psychiatry with the first annual Humanitarian Award at the May Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Philadelphia on May 7, 2012. Dr. Lifton was recognized for his devotion to promoting the social dimension of our work as psychiatrists.

Dr. Lifton's recent book Witness to an Extreme Century was referenced as highly recommended. Participants at the award presentation who spoke both to his legacy and to the specific topics he has researched included R Rao Gogineni, MD, Abraham Halpern, MD, Robert Jay Lifton, MD, Steven Sharfstein, MD, Steven Moffic, MD, Driss Moussaoui, MD, and Henri Parens, MD.