Three faculty members who have retired from the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences have been honored this year with emeritus/emerita status.
Robin H. Gurwitch, PhD, David J. Madden, PhD, and Robert A. Murphy, PhD, have advanced our field in a number of notable ways, and their clinical work, research, and engagement with our education programs have positively impacted many people.
We are incredibly thankful for their service at Duke and wish them all the very best in their next chapter! Below are just a few highlights from their careers.
Robin H. Gurwitch, PhD
Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Child and Family Mental Health and Community Psychiatry Division
Other appointments and roles:
- Affiliate of the Center for Child and Family Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy
- Director, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) & Child Adult Relationship Enhancement (CARE) Training, Center for Child & Family Health
Retiring in June 2025 after 13 years of service
Robin H. Gurwitch, PhD, is a renowned expert in supporting children in the aftermath of disasters, mass violence, and terrorism, as well as in the evidenced-based treatment, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). She received her doctorate in clinical/medical psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychology at the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Gurwitch’s clinical work, training, and research has focused on improving outcomes and increasing resilience in children who have experienced trauma or crisis events. She has served on state and national committees and task forces, including the inaugural National Advisory Committee on Children and Disasters. She has been involved in direct service, training, and consultation for disasters in the U.S., its territories, and internationally.
Gurwitch has been an active member of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) since shortly after its inception in 2001. She’s a senior advisor for the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress’ Terrorism and Disaster Program of the NCTSN and co-PI of the NCTSN Network for Enhancing Wellness in Disaster Affected Youth (NEW DAY) grant.
Since joining the Duke faculty, Gurwitch has served as the director of PCIT and Child Adult Relationship Enhancement (CARE) training at the Center for Child & Family Health, which is dedicated to research, training, and interventions related to child trauma and maltreatment. She’s one of only 21 global trainers certified by PCIT International, a co-developer of the PCIT Trauma module, and a co-developer of CARE and its adaptations. In 2024, she received the PCIT International Lifetime Achievement Award.
Gurwitch is a subject matter expert on issues related to disasters, trauma, resilience, and other children’s issues for the American Psychological Association, Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the U.S. Department of Education, and Nickelodeon, among others.
She has has co-authored numerous scientific journal articles, book chapters, education materials, and NCTSN resources related to trauma, disasters/mass violence/terrorism, resilience, and PCIT. She’s the author of a trauma treatment manual for use with children and adolescents after disasters and worked with the American Red Cross to develop materials for use in preparedness and response activities.
Gurwitch has given hundreds of academic presentations and webinars. She’s a highly sought-after expert and voice for national and international media outlets, including NPR, The Atlantic, NY Times, and Good Morning America.
David J. Madden, PhD
Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Behavioral Medicine and Neurosciences Division
Other appointments and roles:
- Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
- Chair of the Scientific Review Committee and core faculty member at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center
- Core faculty member at the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Retiring in June 2025 after 48 years of service
David Madden, PhD, came to Duke in 1977 as a postdoctoral fellow at the Duke Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development after completing his doctoral degree in cognitive psychology at the University of California, Davis. He joined the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences faculty in 1981 as an assistant research professor.
A tenured professor, Madden conducts research on the cognitive neuroscience of aging, including the investigation of age-related changes in perception, attention, and memory, using both behavioral measures and neuroimaging techniques.
Using behavioral measures, he investigates reaction time with the goal of distinguishing age-related changes in specific cognitive abilities such as selective attention, memory retrieval, and executive control processes from more general effects arising from a slowing in elementary perceptual processes. He uses neuroimaging techniques to help define the functional neuroanatomy of those cognitive abilities.
Ultimately, Madden anticipates that his research will help link age-related changes in cognitive performance to changes in the structure and function of specific neural systems. The results also have implications for clinical translation: identifying neural biomarkers for the diagnosis of neural pathology and targeting rehabilitation procedures.
His research has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1980, and he has co-authored around 200 scientific publications.
Madden has served as the editor-in-chief of the journal Neurobiology of Aging since 2023 and has held a number of other editorial leadership positions. He has also taken on many service roles at NIH, such as membership on study sections, panels, advisory boards, and data safety and monitoring boards.
He received an NIH MERIT Award (1997), the Baltes Distinguished Research Achievement Award from the American Psychological Association (2004), and the Duke University School of Medicine Career Mentoring Award in Basic and Translational Science Award (2024).
Throughout his career, Madden has taught undergraduate and graduate courses related to cognitive neuroscience. In mentoring postdoctoral fellows and students, he emphasizes an appreciation of the previous findings and theories leading to current research projects, as well as the development of the collaborative skills needed to conduct interdisciplinary research.
Robert A. Murphy, PhD
Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Child and Family Mental Health and Community Psychiatry Division
Affiliate of the Center for Child and Family Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy
Retiring in June 2025 after 21 years of service
Robert Murphy, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist focused on the treatment and prevention of child maltreatment and traumatic stress, dissemination of evidence-based interventions, and development of community focused intervention and assessment. After earning his PhD in clinical psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1996, Murphy spent eight years as a predoctoral intern, postdoctoral fellow, and associate research scientist at the Yale Child Study Center before joining the Duke Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences faculty in 2004.
Murphy is a co-developer of Family Connects, a brief postnatal nurse home visiting program, in partnership with researchers at the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. Through two randomized controlled trials and a matched comparison study, the program has demonstrated improved parenting and decreased parental distress, as well as reduced emergency medical care costs and lower rates of reported child maltreatment. Family Connects is being disseminated nationally in more than 30 communities.
Murphy has co-authored dozens of book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, scientific reviews, training curricula, intervention manuals, and assessment tools. He has served as a scientific reviewer for many journals, including JAMA Psychiatry, Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, and The Lancet. Murphy has delivered more than 100 invited talks and scientific presentations nationally and internationally and has consulted on various committees and task forces.
Throughout his career at Duke, Murphy has shared his time and expertise as a mentor to faculty and staff members and postdoctoral fellows.
In addition to his Duke roles, Murphy has served since 2004 as the Executive Director of the Center for Child & Family Health, a community and multi-university partnership dedicated to research, training, and intervention related to child trauma and maltreatment. He has also held an appointment as adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health since 2006.