Joseph Goveas, MD

Dr. Goveas is a fellowship-trained, board-certified geriatric psychiatrist with an interest in elucidating the brain-behavior relationships in normal aging, prolonged grief disorder (a.k.a. complicated grief), and late-life depression.

Our current research focuses on improving understanding of the neurobiological markers that may help us predict who, following the death of a loved one, are resilient and will successfully transition to integrated grief from those who are prone to develop prolonged grief disorder. We believe that this line of work could lead to future seminal research where these biological measures (or markers) could also serve as targets for prevention strategies in older adults with acute grief at risk for a maladaptive grief response and developing complications.

Dr. Goveas has received several awards including being selected every year since 2009 as the Best Doctors in America, is an elected member of

the American College of Psychiatrists and the Society of Biological Psychiatry. He is a recipient of the 2011 Investigator of the year award from the Alzheimer’s Association of Southeastern Wisconsin, and was selected as one of the promising junior investigators in Alzheimer’s disease by the 2013 Charleston Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease. He was a participant of the NIMH-supported summer research institute in geriatric psychiatry, was a past scholar of the MCW NIH-funded K30 program and a 2015-2018 scholar of the NIMH/Weill Cornell Advanced Research Institute in Geriatric Mental Health. He has several peer-reviewed publications in high-impact medical journals, written book chapters, and have given national and international presentations related to bereavement and grief, and late-life depression and Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders.

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