Kathy Pike B'81, JHU'82, JHU'83

Kathleen M. Pike is Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).  She serves as Director of the Global Mental Health Program and Associate Director of the Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program.  She is also Senior Supervising Psychologist in the Center for Eating Disorders at CUMC.  Under Dr. Pike’s leadership, the Global Mental Health Program at Columbia engages in training and education of international scholars and conducts a broad array of programs designed to raise awareness regarding the burden of mental illness worldwide as well as implement strategies for prevention and treatment.

Dr. Pike is recognized internationally for her work in the area of women's health, particularly eating disorders. Dr. Pike has served as consultant to the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 task force on cultural factors associated with the clinical presentation and risk factors of eating disorders and is on the scientific leadership team for the World Health Organization that is responsible for the development of the revision of the International Classification of Diseases, which is used by all WHO member nations to report public health data. 

Dr. Pike earned her undergraduate degree and master's degrees at Johns Hopkins University and spent a year at the Bologna Center.  She completed her doctoral degree at Yale University, stayed on at Yale for a year as a post-doctoral fellow, and then joined the faculty at Columbia University in the departments of Psychiatry and Psychology.  From 1999-2010, Dr. Pike lived in Japan where she served as Professor of Psychology and Assistant Dean for Research at Temple University in Japan and Visiting Professor at Keio University. Dr. Pike has served as co-chair of training and education for the Academy for Eating Disorders and currently serves on the editorial boards of several international journals.  She is the founding chair of the US-TELL Foundation and served as vice-chair of the board of directors for TELL in Japan, the only mental health center dedicated to serving the needs of the international community in Tokyo. She also served vice-chair of the Support Foundation Board of Directors in the founding of the Asian University for Women.