Dr. Holly Wilcox Promoted to Full Professor

Dr. Wilcox is internationally recognized for her work on suicide prevention, a critical aspect of public mental health. She is a graduate of our own Psychiatric Epidemiology Training program where she first began working on PIRC data, studying the long-term impact of the Good Behavior Game on suicidality. After a postdoctoral fellowship at George Washington University, she became faculty in Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at JHU School of Medicine, with a joint appointment in DMH. She moved to our department in 2017. Throughout her career, she has been an actively engaged with DMH as a dedicated colleague and educator. Dr. Wilcox’s research is focused on understanding the etiology of, and developing prevention strategies for, suicidal behaviors and mood disorders among children, adolescents, and young adults. Her most significant contributions have been in three areas: 1) large population-based, prospective cohort studies of suicidal behaviors; 2) development and evaluation of community-based universal prevention programs targeting suicidal behaviors; and 3) data linkage and harmonization to best identify suicide risk and strategically deploy prevention interventions. Given her expertise, Holly has served in multiple advisory capacities at the federal, state, and local levels. To name a few, she has given federal guidance on suicide prevention for US veterans, serves as co-chair of the MD state Commission on Suicide Prevention and is a member of the state’s board of education, and serves on the JHU faculty training and resource working group as well as leading a SAMHSA-funded universal screening effort for students across JHU.