David Brent, MD.
Director, STAR-Center
Professor of Psychiatry, Academic Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic

Dr. Brent was born in Rochester, NY and grew up in the Philadelphia area. He received his undergraduate education at Pennsylvania State University and graduated from Jefferson Medical College of the Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Brent trained in pediatrics at the University of Colorado, in general and child psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, and completed a master’s degree in psychiatric epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. He is currently Academic Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic and Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics & Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

He co-founded and now directs Services for Teens at Risk (STAR), a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania-funded program for suicide prevention, education of professionals, and the treatment of at-risk youth and their families. His work in the area of suicide has focused on the epidemiology of adolescent suicide, and has helped to identify the role of firearms, substance abuse, and affective disorders as risk factors for youth suicide. Consequently, he and colleagues at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic have helped to establish the role of cognitive therapy as a treatment for depressed adolescents in an NIMH-funded clinical trial. Dr. Brent has also focused on the familial and genetic aspects of suicide; having found that suicidal behavior clusters in families and is currently, along with colleagues at New York State Psychiatric Institute, studying how suicidal behavior may be transmitted from parent to child. Dr. Brent’s work has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health, and he currently directs an NIMH-funded Advanced Center for Interventions and Services Research for Early-Onset Mood and Anxiety Disorders devoted to improving the life course of youth with mood and anxiety disorders, and consequently at high risk for suicide.

email: Brentda@upmc.edu

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Mary Margaret Kerr, Ed.D.
Director, STAR-Center Outreach
Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Education
Department of Psychiatry
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic

Dr. Mary Margaret Kerr directs training services for STAR-Center. A graduate of Duke University and American University, Dr. Kerr joined the faculty of the University  of Pittsburgh in 1980.  She holds appointments in Child Psychiatry and Psychology in Education, where she directs a graduate program in school-based behavioral health.

Also licensed as a superintendent, Dr. Kerr has worked in urban school districts throughout her academic career. For five years, she served Pittsburgh City Schools as Director of Pupil Services, where she administered services such as guidance, social work, counseling, alternative education, health services, school security, and discipline. For nine years, Dr. Kerr worked in the Los Angeles Unified School District as a federal consent decree administrator.

Dr. Kerr has responded to over 1000 school-related crises, including the TWA 800 crash and school shootings.  She designed the Pittsburgh Schools crisis response team model, one of the first in the country, and has consulted with many schools on crisis responding and school safety.  Her team’s Postvention Standards Manual: a Guide for a School’s Response in the Aftermath of a Sudden Death is widely recognized as a model.   Dr. Kerr also served as an expert panelist for the US Government report, A Guide for Intermediate and Long-term Mental Health Services After School-Related Violent Events. Dr. Kerr's work in applied settings has provided case study material for textbooks and many presentations and publications.

email: kerrmm@upmc.edu