Elizabeth Ford, MD

Elizabeth Ford, MD is a board-certified psychiatrist and forensic psychiatrist who has provided decades of direct treatment and leadership in mental health care for people involved in the criminal legal system in New York City. She is Associate Professor and Director and Founder the Justice-Involved Behavioral Health program in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Ford’s research and education work centers on topics related to increasing awareness about and knowledge of health care in confinement settings and encouraging mental health professionals to become more involved in reducing the criminalization of mental illness. She teaches locally and nationally to a range of multi-disciplinary trainees and clinical and legal providers and is an active researcher and contributor to the peer-reviewed scientific literature related to social justice, criminal justice, and psychiatry. Her first non-academic book, a critically acclaimed memoir entitled Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward, was published in 2017. 

Former positions include the Director of the Division of Forensic Psychiatry at Bellevue Hospital, Training Director for the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship, Chief of Psychiatry for New York City’s Health + Hospitals’ Correctional Health Services at Rikers Island, and Chief Medical Officer positions at the Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Ford received her undergraduate degree from Yale University, her medical degree from the University of Virginia, and her psychiatric and forensic psychiatric training at the New York University School of Medicine. 

For additional information, click here