Laurie Flynn Named the 2026 President's Awardee
Laurie Flynn
First Executive Director, NAMI
Mental Health Advocate
Laurie served from 1984 -2000 as the executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). During her tenure NAMI emerged as one of the nations’ strongest and most respected voice on mental illness issues with over 2000 members in all 50 states. NAMI advocated for major increases in NIMH research and initiated the return of NIMH to NIH. Laurie led NAMI during the successful fight for mental health parity in health insurance and passage of both state and federal legislation.
After 16 years at NAMI, Laurie was recruited in 2001 to the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. The goal was to translate research on adolescent depression and suicide risk into an early detection program for teens. TeenScreen was adopted by more than 2500 primary care providers and in over 600 school and community sites in 46 states. We were successful in urging the US Preventive Services Task Force to recommend mental health screening of teens in annual medical checkups.
Laurie served on President Barack Obama’s Health Policy Advisory Committeeand was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission. She was elected chair of The Mind Research Network, a brain disorder research organization with research partners at Yale, Harvard, MIT, and the Sandia National Laboratories. She served as advisory committee member of the Johns Hopkins/University of Maryland NIMH-funded Research Center on Services for Persons with Serious Mental Illness. Laurie was also an advisor to the NIMH Schizophrenia PORT. She served as chair of the Foundation for Accountability and served on the Advisory Board of the APA’s Journal on Psychiatric Services.
Laurie was honored to receive a Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association and APA's Patient Advocacy Award, the Mental Health Section Award of the American Public Health Association, the Humanitarian Award by Society of Biological Psychiatry, the McLean Hospital Award and the Distinguished Service Award of the National Association of the Psychiatric Health Systems and American Hospital Association. Other honors are the Public Service Award of the American Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Humanitarian Award of the Washington Psychiatric Society.
Previous President's Awardees
2025 – Christos Pantelis
2024 – Thomas Jamieson-Craig
2023 – Elyn Saks
2022 – David Harewood
2021 – Graham Boeckh Foundation
2020 – The Staglin Family
2019 – Carol Tamminga
