I grew up in New York City. I graduated from Bayside HS in Queens NY, Union College in Schenectady NY and University of Chicago Medical School. I did my residency in psychiatry at Maine Medical Center and the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Since then I have worked in both state and private psychiatric hospitals, community mental health centers, and in private practice in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Over the last fifteen years or so I have represented psychiatry in New Hampshire through the New Hampshire Psychiatric Society (President, 2017- 2021) and New Hampshire Medical Society (President, 2017- 2018). My special interests have included Ethics and Managed Care, Forensic Psychiatry, Gun Violence as a Public Health Issue and the Abolition of the Death Penalty (Board member, New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (2010 to present). I have also served on the Executive Board of the New Hampshire Legal Assistance Program (2018- 2024).

As a psychiatrist I have actively worked on advocacy for gun violence prevention and abolition of the death penalty. That advocacy has included publishing many op-eds in local newspapers in New Hampshire and Maine and testifying on many occasions at the New Hampshire State House. When I was president of the New Hampshire Medical Society in 2018 I led advocacy for many gun violence prevention policies at the Annual Meeting of the AMA leading to the adoption of many crucial gun violence prevention policies of the AMA in June 2018.

I am Board Certified in General Psychiatry. I was Board Certified in Forensic Psychiatry from 1999 to 2009. In 2009 I elected to not pursue recertification in Forensic Psychiatry.