2026 Outstanding Clinical and Community Research Award

Dr. Gail Daumit is Samsung Professor of Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine with appointments in Epidemiology, Health Policy and Management, and Mental Health in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a primary care physician who has devoted her research career to improving physical health and decreasing premature mortality for persons living with serious mental illness. Dr. Daumit uses innovative, rigorous methods in epidemiology, mental health services research, clinical trials and implementation science to conduct studies to address this complex public health issue, receiving continuous National Institutes of Health investigator-initiated funding for 25 years. She has led landmark community-based clinical trials addressing cardiovascular risk factors in individuals with serious mental illness. Dr. Daumit directed the ACHIEVE Trial of a tailored behavioral weight loss intervention that received the International Society for Clinical Trials, Trial of the Year Award and influenced guidelines on managing physical health in people with serious mental illness. She is currently leading an implementation science research portfolio to inform successful scale-up of cardiovascular risk reduction interventions for persons with serious mental illness. Her work emphasizes community engagement including through building and leading Community Advisory Boards and longitudinal partnerships with health organizations, advocacy groups, state and national policymakers, payers, and persons with lived experience of mental illness and their family members.

Prof Siskind trained as a psychiatrist in Australia and the United States. He works clinically as a psychiatrist in Brisbane, Australia with people with treatment refractory schizophrenia. His research interests include treatment refractory schizophrenia, clozapine and the physical health comorbidities associated with schizophrenia. He has over 300 publications and AU$60million in competitive research grants, with over AU $7 million as CIA.

I am deeply honoured to receive the SIRS Outstanding Clinical and Community Research Award. To be recognised by colleagues within this remarkable international community is both humbling and profoundly meaningful. 

My work has always been driven by an aim: to ensure that research in schizophrenia translates into tangible improvements in the lives of people living with psychosis. As a clinician working with individuals with treatment-resistant schizophrenia, I have seen how transformative effective treatments can be, and how system barriers can prevent access to them. Our team’s research has focused on improving safe access to clozapine, modernising monitoring frameworks, and reducing unnecessary treatment burden, while also addressing the cardiometabolic inequities that contribute to premature mortality. 

This award reflects the efforts of an extraordinary team. I am deeply grateful to my colleagues, collaborators, trainees, and clinical team. The work on global consensus guidelines, clinical trials, and health policy reform has only been possible because of shared purpose, intellectual generosity, and sustained collaboration. 

I am particularly thankful to people with lived experience of schizophrenia and their families, whose insights continually shape and strengthen our research.