APPA 2026-2027 Council

James C. Anthony

PRESIDENT

MSU/JHU/UPCH

Henning Tiemeier

PRESIDENT-ELECT

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Holly Wilcox

VICE PRESIDENT

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Bio
Dr. Holly Wilcox is a Professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Suicide Prevention. She holds joint appointments in the Department of Health Policy and Management, as well as the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Education. Holly’s research centers on advancing public health approaches to suicide prevention, encompassing policies, early intervention, and chain of care approaches. Holly is the President of the International Academy of Suicide Research (IASR), a member of the Scientific Council and Board of Directors of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP), a suicide prevention consultant for the World Health Organization, and an Affiliate Investigator at the Centre for Research Excellence in Suicide Prevention of the Black Dog Institute in Australia.
Dr. Wilcox has a focus on population-based research on preventing suicidal behaviors. Her work evaluates the impact of community-based universal prevention programs targeting suicidal behaviors and leverages data linkage strategies to inform effective suicide prevention. Dr. Wilcox’s research extends to diverse settings, including schools, universities, social media platforms, and emergency departments. She actively mentors students, teaches courses at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and leads a multidisciplinary, interdepartmental suicide prevention center at Johns Hopkins. She has won the Johns Hopkins Advising, Mentoring, and Teaching Recognition Award three times.
Throughout her career, Dr. Wilcox has been a tireless advocate for a public health-oriented suicide prevention agenda, collaborating with national and international organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization/UNICEF, and Pan American Health Organization. She has secured over 50 million dollars in competitive research grants from various agencies and has published over 180 research articles. Dr. Wilcox has worked to adapt and implement school-based interventions in the United States and make research findings accessible to people working in various roles in the community including mental health professionals and suicide bereaved individuals.

Maria Kovacs

PAST-PRESIDENT

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

William Narrow

SECRETARY

Johns Hopkins

Susan Santangelo

TREASURER

Maine Health Institute for Research/
Tufts University School of Medicine

Bio
Dr. Susan L. Santangelo is a psychiatric and genetic epidemiologist and is Research Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, as well as Director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science at the MaineHealth Institute for Research in Scarborough, Maine. She received her doctorate in Epidemiology from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and previously held faculty positions with Tufts New England Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she directed the Statistical Genetics and Genetic Epidemiology Laboratory within the Center for Human Genetic Research.
Dr. Santangelo is a member of the Autism Working Group and the Cross-Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC). She has studied the genetics of autism spectrum disorders for over 20 years and has partnered with Dr. Matthew Siegel to organize a national research collaborative of specialized inpatient units serving the most severely affected children with autism in order to establish the Autism Inpatient Collection (AIC). The AIC was funded to collect behavioral data and biological samples from ~1600 patients and their family members. Sequencing has recently been completed on all the AIC samples via SFARI and Regeneron and the data are scheduled to be released in June, 2025.

Oscar Jimenez-Solomon

TREASURER-ELECT

New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University

Bio
Dr. Oscar Jiménez-Solomon is a mental health and social policy researcher dedicated to advancing equity by addressing the social determinants of mental health, including poverty, financial hardship, and economic opportunity. His work integrates quantitative and qualitative methods, the design of multisectoral interventions, and the meaningful inclusion of individuals with lived expertise.
Dr. Jiménez-Solomon earned a PhD in Social Policy from Columbia University School of Social Work, an MPH from the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and a BA in Sociology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.
Since 2013, he has served as a Research Scientist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI), Columbia University Medical Center, and in 2024 was appointed Assistant Director of the NYS Center of Excellence for Cultural Competence. At CECC, he leads a study funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to develop and evaluate a peer-led financial empowerment intervention aimed at reducing hardship and suicide risk, and he spearheads a report by the New York State Suicide Prevention Task Force aimed at shaping policy and programmatic recommendations for disproportionately affected populations. Dr. Jiménez-Solomon also works with the NYSPI Community Mental Wellness Center, where he leads development of a community-based intervention addressing financial hardship. He is also a Research Scientist Affiliate at the Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy, focusing on measurement of socioeconomic stressors in mental health epidemiology and the longitudinal links between income, material hardship, and mental health.
With more than 20 years of experience, Dr. Jiménez-Solomon has collaborated on research, policy, and program development in the United States, Peru, the Dominican Republic, and Chile. His past roles include Director of Economic Development at the Alliance for Rights and Recovery, Officer of Research at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, Research Associate at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, and International Consultant at the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). He has authored or co-authored numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, policy reports, empowerment tools, and training manuals for mental health professionals across the Americas.
Dr. Jiménez-Solomon also has extensive leadership and service experience. He currently serves as Treasurer and Board Member (2025-present) of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry (and its Family and Culture SIG since 2022), the Board of the National Disability Institute (Board Member, 2017-present; Vice-Chair, 2019–2020), the New York State Suicide Prevention Council, and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging (DEIAB) and Program Committees of the American Psychopathological Association (APPA). His prior leadership includes serving as Board Member (2014–2019) and Treasurer (2016–2019) of the American Society for Hispanic Psychiatry. He has also organized and supported major scientific conferences, including chairing the Local Organizing Committee for the 2018 World Congress of Cultural Psychiatry (New York City) and serving on the Program Committee for APPA’s 2025 Annual Meeting (Boston).

Natalie Slopen

MEMBERSHIP CHAIR

Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health,
Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Bio
Dr. Natalie Slopen is a social epidemiologist with a focus on child development, psychiatric epidemiology, and life course theory. She is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Slopen’s research focuses on how social and environmental factors influence health and well-being in childhood and across the lifespan. Her work, encompassing both observational and experimental studies, aims to generate insights that can inform effective policies and programs to promote health equity.

Emma Stapp

COUNCILOR

George Washington University, Milken Institute School of Public Health

Alison Merikangas

COUNCILOR

Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

Bio
Alison K. Merikangas, M.P.H., Ph.D., received a B.S. in Psychology from Carnegie-Mellon University, an M.P.H. in Epidemiology from the George Washington University, and a Ph.D. in Neuropsychiatric Genetics at Trinity College Dublin. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in genetic epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, she was a Senior Scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She has been a regular member of the American Psychopathological Association for more than 10 years and has been a Councilor since 2023. The broad aim of her research is to identify the impact of genetic and environmental risk factors on neuropsychiatric disorders and comorbid associations with medical conditions in youth, with specific interest in sex and developmental factors in their evolution. Dr. Merikangas has more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, and numerous presentations at national and international scientific meetings. She has received awards from the International Society for Bipolar Disorders, and World Psychiatric Association Epidemiology and Public Health Section.

Helen Wilson

COUNCILOR

Stanford University School of Medicine,
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences