In Memoriam

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Judith L. Rapoport, M.D. 1933–2026 (PDF)

Judy Rapoport, who was elected to the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in 1977, became its President in 2008, and was a Fellow Emeritus, passed away on March 7, 2026. She leaves her husband Stanley Rapoport, a physician whom she met when they were students at Harvard Medical School and was Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, sons Erik and Stuart Rapoport, and grandsons Ty, Lukas, Maxime and Adrien. Judy’s NIMH team contributed to the understanding and treatment of ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and childhood onset schizophrenia. In a placebo-controlled trial, she demonstrated that the tricyclic antidepressant clomipramine was effective in child and adolescent OCD, leading to its FDA approval. One of her more than 300 publications, “The Boy who Couldn’t Stop Washing,” a popular New York Time’s best seller, chronicled experiences of OCD patients and showed how the disease causes rational people to behave irrationally. Her team later used MRI to show that the human brain continues to grow throughout adolescence, and that many childhood and adolescent neuropsychiatric disorders are associated with abnormal growth trajectories. For example, they reported that childhood onset schizophrenia is accompanied by accelerated loss of cortical grey matter during adolescence and responds to clomipramine. Pluripotent cells from these patients are used now to decipher the genetics of schizophrenia.

William H. Morse, Ph.D. 1928–2026 (PDF)

William Herbert Morse died on February 28, 2026, while hospitalized near his home in Gig Harbor, Washington. Dr. Morse was a Member Emeritus and was accepted into ACNP membership in 1979. Morse attended college at the University of Virginia, where he studied with the psychologist Frank W. Finger, and earned a BA (1950) and an MA (1952) in psychology. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard University in B. F. Skinner’s laboratory. His time at Harvard working with Skinner was exceedingly influential. Morse found behavior controlled by schedules of reinforcement to be fascinating and capable of elucidating many of the seemingly enigmatic aspects of behavior. He authored a definitive analysis of performances under schedules of reinforcement [1], and their continuing study was to occupy his time and interests for the remainder of his research career. B.F. Skinner [2], looking back at that period remarked: I think Bill and I carried out the most elegant experiments I have ever had a part in — beautifully designed and, I think, terribly important. But Bill doesn’t like to write papers, and I was by that time thoroughly immersed in programmed instruction and teaching machines, and we never published more than half of our results. But it gives me a wonderful sense of quiet power to realize that there are some very important things about the behavior of organisms which only Bill Morse and I know.

Nancy Almand Ator, Ph.D. 1944-2025 (PDF)

Dr. Ator earned her B.A. (1972) and Masters (1974) degrees in Psychology and her Ph.D. (1978) in Biopsychology at the University of Maryland under the mentorship of Dr. Lewis Gollub. She then joined the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as a post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Roland Griffiths. Upon completion of the fellowship she was recruited to join the faculty at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where she stayed as a full-time member in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences until her retirement in 2021. Dr. Ator was the Director of the Division of Behavioral Biology from 1999 until 2019 and was the longtime chair of the Johns Hopkins Animal Care and Use Committee. She was the 49th woman promoted to Professor within the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the 6th ever in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Ator was elected to American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) membership in 1997. Most recently she was Member Emeritus. She was very active in the ACNP, serving on multiple committees including the Committee on the Use of Animals in Neuropsychopharmacology. She was the ACNP representative to the Board of Trustees of AAALAC International (2004-2016; Delegate beginning 2017 following change in governance structure) as well as to the STAR coalition (Supporting Truth about Animal Research). In addition, she made numerous contributions nationally, including serving on an advisory committee to the Director of the NIH, and the Working Group on Reproducible Research with Animals, as well as the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AALAC) International. Her work in the ACNP earned her the Paul Hoch Distinguished Service Award. She also was awarded the Distinguished Delegate Service Award from the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care.

Robert M. Bilder, Ph.D. 1956-2025 (PDF)

On August 13, 2025, we lost one of our brightest stars, Robert (“Bob”) M. Bilder, Ph.D., far too soon. Bob possessed a unique blend of creativity, innovative expression, scientific rigor, humor and kindness. He was the Michael E. Tennenbaum Distinguished Family Chair in Creativity Research, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, and Chief of the Psychology Division at UCLA. Bob was co-founder of the UCLA Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center and the Tennenbaum Center for the Biology of Creativity. Bob was a Fellow of ACNP and was accepted into membership in 2008. Bob earned his BA in Biology and Psychology from Columbia University in 1978, followed by a Ph.D. in Psychology with a specialization in human neuropsychology from City College, City University of New York in 1984. Before joining UCLA in 2002, he held prominent faculty appointments at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, serving as Chief of Neuropsychology at Zucker Hillside Hospital and Associate Director for Human Research at the Center for Advanced Brain Imaging at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research.

Karl Rickels, MD 1924-2025 (PDF)

Karl Rickels, MD, died peacefully and surrounded by family on July 16, 2025 at his home in Gladwyne, PA. He was 100 years old. Dr. Rickels became a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) in 1961 and later served as a Fellow Emeritus, reflecting his long-standing contributions to the field. Dr. Rickels was a pioneering psychiatrist whose six-decade career shaped the modern treatment of anxiety and depressive disorders. He was among the first physicians to study and develop outpatient pharmacotherapy for psychiatric illness, transforming care from hospital to community settings. Dr. Rickels’ rigorous clinical methods, longitudinal trial designs, and emphasis on patient safety helped establish psychopharmacology as a data-driven discipline. His research demonstrated that well-structured, controlled studies could yield reliable, clinically meaningful evidence, setting the methodological template for modern psychiatric drug development. For more than half a century, he remained a mentor and collaborator to generations of investigators worldwide. Dr. Karl Rickels’ scientific legacy endures through the countless clinicians and researchers influenced by his work, and through the millions of patients whose lives were improved by the treatments his studies helped bring to practice.

Nolan R. Williams, MD 1982-2025 (PDF)

Nolan R. Williams, MD, died tragically from suicide on October 8, 2025, at the age of 42. Nolan was elected to ACNP membership in 2024. He was a brilliant neuropsychiatrist, board certified in both neurology and psychiatry, who pioneered novel interventions for depression, suicide prevention, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A native Charlestonian, he received his undergraduate degree from the College of Charleston and his MD degree (2008) from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where he also completed the joint neurology and psychiatry residencies in 2014. Nolan then joined the faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he rose to the rank of Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and was Director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab. Nolan was bold and visionary in his science. He conducted paradigm-shifting experiments that impacted multiple fields. His key contributions were in the areas of opioid mediation of the antidepressant effects of ketamine, the therapeutic properties of ibogaine, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) modulation of hypnotic susceptibility, and the acceleration of TMS in treatment-resistant depression.