Chair, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences; Director, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship Program, Morehouse School of Medicine

Dr. Sarah Y. Vinson is a triple board-certified physician who specializes in adult, child & adolescent, and forensic psychiatry. In addition to maintaining active clinic practice where she sees a socioeconomically diverse clientele, she is the founder of Lorio Forensics, an MBE certified multidisciplinary, culturally, and structurally informed, forensic mental health consultation company. Dr. Vinson graduated Summa Cum Laude from Florida A&M University. After graduating from medical school at the University of Florida with Research Honors and as an Inductee in the Chapman Humanism Honors Society, she completed her general psychiatry training at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School. While there, she also received specialized training in trauma through the Victims of Violence Program. She then returned to the South to complete fellowships in both child & adolescent and forensic psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine, where she continues to serve as adjunct faculty.

Dr. Vinson is the Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine, where she was the lead architect and is the Program Director for the Child Psychiatry Fellowship, the first at an HBCU medical school. She has been elected and/or appointed to national and statewide office by her professional peers and is on the board of both the American Association of Community Psychiatry and the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. She is also one of two National Psychiatric Advisors for the Judges and Psychiatrists Leadership Initiative, a collaboration between the Council of State Governments and the American Psychiatric Association that designs and delivers training for Judges regarding mental health and criminal justice. Additionally, at the invitation of the Conference of Chief Justices and Conference of State Court Administrators, she served on the National Judicial Task Force to Examine State Courts’ Response to Mental Illness. She is the co-editor of two texts: Pediatric Mental Health for Primary Care Providers and Social (In)Justice & Mental Health.