Dr. Moira A. Rynn has been the chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University since July 2017. Her previous positions include the Ruane Professor for the Implementation of Science for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and Columbia University and the director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Division at the Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at New York Presbyterian.

Born in Islip, Long Island, Moira majored in biology at Goucher College and received her medical degree at Rutgers University. From her first jobs as a swimming instructor and lifeguard, she had an interest in keeping those around her happy and secure, something which she passed on to her five younger siblings, all of whom followed in the lifeguard tradition.

Moira is a second-generation Irish American with roots in counties Leitrim and Limerick on her father’s side. “My grandparents taught me how fortunate I was to be born and raised in the U.S.A. but at the same time taught me to be proud of my Irish heritage,” she says. Moira lives in North Carolina with her husband Alfred and ten-year-old fraternal twins, Ella and Aiden.