San Francisco — Mark Rapaport, M.D., began his one-year term as president of the American Psychiatric Association at the close of APA’s 2026 Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Rapaport is the Founding CEO, Emeritus, of the Huntsman Mental Health Institute at the University of Utah and adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at Stanford.
“Achieving true mental health parity will require all of us — psychiatrists, policymakers, health systems, advocates, philanthropists and business leaders — to work from a shared agenda,” said Rapaport. “As APA president, I look forward to working with APA members and partners across health care, policy and philanthropy to advance parity, reduce stigma and improve access to high-quality psychiatric care.”
Rapaport has published more than 200 peer-reviewed research papers and has had peer-reviewed research funding since 1992. His work has focused on interactions between the brain and the immune system as well as clinical psychopharmacology and complementary medicine. He has been a mentor to hundreds of trainees through the New Investigator Program that he started for the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology annual meeting.
He also co-founded APA’s journal Focus with Deborah J. Hales, M.D., and served as its editor-in-chief until recently. Focus was the first major journal in the field to devote entire issues to LGBTQ+ and underrepresented minority mental health concerns.
Among Dr. Rapaport’s priorities as APA president are:
Advancing mental health parity by strengthening collaboration among academics, clinicians and community leaders.
Combatting stigma against people with mental illness and substance use disorders by building on the strengths of existing public education campaigns.
Rapaport is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA. Prior to his current academic position, he was the Reunette Harris chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine, the chief psychiatric officer for Emory Healthcare, and a founding co-director of the Emory Brain Health Center, among other appointments. He attended the UC San Diego School of Medicine, where he served as chief resident.
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association, founded in 1844, is the oldest medical association in the country. The APA is also the largest psychiatric association in the world with more than 40,400 physician members specializing in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and research of mental illnesses. APA’s vision is to ensure access to quality psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. For more information, please visit www.psychiatry.org.