Alan M. Mellow, MD, PhD

Chief, Division of Geriatric Psychiatry
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
University of Michigan Health System
Director of Mental Health Programs
Veterans Healthcare Network 11
Department of Veterans Affairs
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Alan M. Mellow, MD currently is chief of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry, and associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor. Dr. Mellow also is the director of Mental Health Programs, Veterans Healthcare Network 11, Department of Veterans Affairs, also in Ann Arbor.

A native of Chicago, Dr. Mellow attended medical school at Northwestern University, where he received both his doctorate (Pharmacology–1980) and medical (1981) degrees. He completed an internship in internal medicine at the University of Chicago, residency training in psychiatry at McLean Hospital of Harvard Medical School, and a research fellowship in geriatric psychopharmacology at the National Institute of Mental Health. He continued his studies in management and policy training at the Harvard School of Public Health, and at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, also at Harvard.

Board certified in both adult and geriatric psychiatry, Dr. Mellow has been on the faculty of the University of Michigan and the medical staff of the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System (VAAAHS) since 1988. From 1993-1999, he served as chief of psychiatry at VAAAHS, and in 1996 served as the chair of the Mental Health Task Force for Veterans Healthcare Network (VISN) 11. He was appointed director of the VISN 11 Mental Health Service Line in 1999. In that position he currently oversees all clinical, educational, and research activities in mental health for the network’s eight hospitals and twenty community-based satellite clinics in Michigan, Indiana, central Illinois, and northwest Ohio.

Dr. Mellow is a member of the VISN 11 Executive Leadership Council and Strategic Planning Board, and nationally serves as a member of the VA Committee on Serious Mental Illness, the VA Mental Health Field Advisory Board, and the Board of Directors of the VA National Mental Health Improvement Program. He is a participating investigator in the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study group, lectures widely on topics in geriatric psychiatry, and has active clinical practices at both the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, and the University of Michigan Health System. He is listed in the 2003 edition of America’s Top Doctors.

His research interests are in the pharmacology of dementia, the psychobiology and pharmacotherapy of geriatric alcoholism, and outcomes in dementia and geriatric depression. He also is actively involved in psychiatric education and directing a geriatric psychiatry fellowship training program at Michigan.

Dr. Mellow has published more than 100 articles, abstracts, and book chapters in the field of geriatric psychiatry/psychopharmacology. He has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and has served on grant review committees for the VA, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute on Aging. In addition to his VA and university duties, Dr. Mellow serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry and Neurology, an international journal dedicated to clinical research in the neuropsychiatry of the elderly.