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Interviewee History
Dr. H. Keith H. Brodie was born August 24, 1939 in New Canaan, Conn. He majored in chemistry at Princeton University and then attended Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. After an internship in internal medicine at the Ochner Foundation Hospital in New Orleans, La., he returned to Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center for his residency in psychiatry. Brodie then served as a clinical associate at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. From 1970 to 1974, Brodie taught at Stanford University, where he was also chair of the Medical School Faculty Senate and director of the General Research Center.
In 1974, Brodie came to Duke as chair of the Department of Psychiatry, where he was later named the James B. Duke Professor of Psychiatry and Law. He became the chancellor of Duke University in 1982, and then served as president of Duke University from 1985 to 1993. Under Dr. Brodie's presidency, Duke made a concerted effort to reach out to groups of differing races, cultures, and ethnicities by creating the Black Faculty Initiative and the Program for Preparing Minorities for Academic Careers. The interdisciplinary Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences, a new School of the Environment, and the Levine Science Research Center also marked the period of his tenure.
Dr. Brodie's research has primarily focused on biochemical substrates of mood disorders. He authored or coauthored over seventy scientific articles; coauthored Modern Clinical Psychiatry; and was the coeditor of Controversy in Psychiatry, Critical Problems in Psychiatry, and Signs and Symptoms in Psychiatry. He served as co-editor for the American Handbook of Psychiatry, Volumes VI, VII, and VII, and also served on the board of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Brodie received the Society of Biological Psychiatry's A.E. Bennett Research Award, the psychopharmacology prize of the American Psychological Association, and the Edward A. Streck Award of the Pennsylvania Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He has been the president of the American Psychiatric Association and has chaired the Board of Mental Health and Behavioral Medicine of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. Since stepping down from the presidency in 1993, Dr. Brodie has continued teaching and clinical consultation.
This interview was conducted in June 2004 in the interviewee's office in the East Duke Building. The interview was conducted during work hours. Dr. Brodie reviewed the transcript making minor changes.