Tasman elected to leadership post at World Psychiatric Association

Allan Tasman, M.D., chair of the University of Louisville Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, has been elected to a six-year term as secretary for education of the World Psychiatric Association.

Tasman, senior editor of one of the field's leading textbooks, has served as president of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry.

He also was a two-term president of the American Association of Chairs of Departments of Psychiatry and is past-president and scientific program committee chair of the American Psychiatric Association.

As secretary for education of the WPA, Tasman will serve as a member of the organization's executive committee. He also will chair the committee that makes educational policy recommendations for the profession worldwide and operational decisions for the WPA's wide range of educational programs.

The WPA has more than 175,000 members in 134 countries and collaborates closely with the World Health Organization and many other international health and mental health organizations.

Tasman joined UofL in 1991.

His research focuses on the neurological and physiological processes related to depression and the risk of developing alcoholism.

He completed medical school at the University of Kentucky and psychiatric residency at the University of Cincinnati. Tasman also is a graduate of the Western New England Psychoanalytic Institute.