After visiting Sichuan in 2008 at the invitation of the Chinese government to address population mental health issues following the Wenchuan earthquake, Dr. Van Dyke helped form a multidisciplinary workgroup with faculty members from several University of California campuses to address long-term recovery issues following natural disasters. For the past several years, he has collaborated with Japanese colleagues on developing mental health services for victims of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. He is currently a visiting scholar at Jikei University in Tokyo.
Dr. Van Dyke completed his psychiatric training at Yale University and then joined the Yale faculty as a member of the Consultation-Liaison Service at Yale-New Haven Hospital. In 1979, he moved to the San Francisco VA Medical Center and UCSF, where he directed the Consultation-Liaison Service until 1986. In 1987, he became Chief of Psychiatry at SFVAMC and then moved to the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute in 1994 to serve as director and chair of the department. His prior research was in drug abuse and neuroimaging. In 2007, he received the Dr. J. Elliot Royer Award as the Outstanding Academic Psychiatrist in the Bay Area.
