UB and Kaleida Health name Beth Smith chair of psychiatry and chief of service, psychiatry and behavioral medicine

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Beth A. Smith, MD, has been appointed chair of the Department of Psychiatry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, effective March 1. She also serves as chief of service, psychiatry and behavioral medicine, for Kaleida Health; medical director for the Children’s Psychiatry Clinic of Oishei Children’s Hospital; and president of UBMD Psychiatry. Smith has been serving as interim chair of the department since July 2023.

Smith’s clinical work focuses on the assessment and treatment of children and adolescents with comorbid medical illness. An internationally recognized expert in cystic fibrosis (CF) mental health, Smith co-authored the international guidelines on depression and anxiety in CF for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and European CF Society, and led their worldwide implementation.

As the founding chair of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s Mental Health Advisory Committee, she has significantly advanced mental well-being for individuals with CF and their families. Her extensive research, supported by substantial funding, focuses on psychiatric comorbidities, including depression and anxiety, in patients with CF. This work has earned her the prestigious Carolyn and C. Richard Mattingly Leadership in Mental Health Care Award from the North American Cystic Fibrosis Conference. She also serves on the CF Foundation’s North American Planning Committee as its psychosocial chair, and on its Clinical Research Advisory Board.

She is currently principal investigator on a $3 million grant from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to focus on the mental health of children ages 18 months to 11 years with the disease. The 15-site study, headquartered at UB, will evaluate the national prevalence of mental health concerns in children with CF and identify the best ways to screen for mental health issues in these children.

“Together with our partners at Kaleida Health, it is with great pleasure that we are announcing the appointment of Beth A. Smith, MD, as the permanent chair of the Department of Psychiatry,” says Allison Brashear, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. “After a rigorous national search, Dr. Smith, a highly accomplished clinician-scientist with proven leadership, was chosen to lead the department, building upon her successful tenure as interim chair since July 2023.”

Smith is board-certified in both psychiatry and child psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She completed the SUNY Institute for Academic and Innovative Leadership (SAIL) for mid-career physicians in 2022.

A graduate of the Jacobs School, she completed her psychiatric residency and fellowship training in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Jacobs School as well. A UB faculty member since 2005, she became chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2016; she is also a professor of pediatrics. Smith also serves as liaison to Psychiatry Program Development at Erie County Medical Center.

In 2019, Smith was inducted into the Emeritus Faculty Chapter of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. She has received numerous awards, including the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Education and the Award for Excellence in Clinical Supervision.   

Smith is active in numerous professional organizations, including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Association of Women Psychiatrists and the Western New York Psychiatric Association. She has contributed extensively to psychiatric literature, publishing numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters, and has presented nationally and internationally on depression, anxiety and cystic fibrosis.