Contributor

Dr. Aradhana (Bela) Sood

Senior Professor for Child and Mental Health Policy, VCU Health

Dr. Aradhana (Bela) Sood, MD, MSHA, FAACAP, is Senior Professor for Child and Mental Health Policy at the Virginia Treatment Center for Children, VCU Health, with four decades in child and adolescent psychiatry spanning two cultures: from medical training at Gajra Raja Medical College in India to residency at the University of Missouri and fellowship at Ohio State University. She was appointed by Governor Mark Warner to Virginia's State Board of Social Services in 2005, and by Governor Tim Kaine as the mental health expert on the panel investigating the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings. She has served the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry as councillor-at-large and secretary, and lobbied its national Work Force initiative in Washington on gun violence and solutions. A 2002 Fellow of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine program at Drexel University, her honours include the VCU University Distinguished Service Award, the American Psychiatric Association's Distinguished Outstanding International Medical Graduate award, and the Agnes Purcell award for prevention in mental health. She is co-author of Social Justice for Children and Young People and Prevention in Child Psychiatry, and of a book on the Virginia Tech massacre whose strategies for improving mental health policy led to national reforms in college and school safety.