Gerry Koocher

I was born at a very early age in the Cahill House at Cambridge City Hospital. In what seems a degree of cosmic pre–destination for a psychologist, that former maternity ward today serves as a psychiatric unit. After attending the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow elementary school and Cambridge Latin School, I began my college career as a chemistry major at Boston University, shifting to psychology in my sophomore year. After finishing my B.A. at BU, I won a fellowship for graduate work at the University of Missouri (aka: Mizzou), and managed to finish an M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology in three years.

My field placements included the maximum security unit of a state hospital and the university counseling center, but I really wanted to work with children, and applied for internship at Children’s Hospital back home in Massachusetts. One big incentive; after growing up in Cambridge I could not stand living in a town where the population doubled on football Saturdays.

From 1971 through 2001 I held a series of positions beginning as a psychology intern and ultimately winding up as chief of psychology overseeing services at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, Judge Baker Children’s Center, and the pediatric service at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute. These jobs also included a full–time faculty status at Harvard Medical School. Along the way I taught part–time at Simmons during the 1980s for the psychology and physical therapy programs. In June 2001, I accepted President Cheever’s offer to become a professor and dean of the School of Health Sciences at Simmons.

Throughout my years since graduate school I’ve always done a mix of clinical work, research, and teaching. I took examinations to become board certified in five specialties (Clinical, Clinical Child /Adolescent, Family, Forensic, and Health Psychology) and became licensed as a psychologist in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and the District of Columbia. I currently serve as editor of the journal Ethics & Behavior, previously edited the Journal of Pediatric Psychology and The Clinical Psychologist. Over the years I have published more than 200 articles and book chapters and authored or edited 13 books.

As a psychologist, my work has focused on family coping with chronic and life–threatening illness in childhood (especially cancer, cystic fibrosis, and diabetes); coping with bereavement and loss; professional and scientific ethics, and mental health malpractice. I’ve stayed very involved in professional affairs, serving as president of the Massachusetts and New England Psychological Associations and as president of the American Psychological Association in 2006.

My wife, Robin, a social worker and paralegal, and I met while we were both in training at Children’s Hospital. We share a passion for odd collectables (including, but not limited to Star Wars action figures, metal lunch boxes, cook books, and animation art—especially Disney production cels and the work of Jay Ward). Many of these items have found their way into Simmons Silent Auction as we’ve tried to narrow our collections.

Robin and I also have another passion, psittacine aviculture (raising parrots). We adopted our first bird, an African Gray parrot, as practice for having a child. Our daughter, Abby, was born three years later. As if to teach us a lesson, her first word was not Mama or Dada, but rather, "birdie." We have an aviary that currently serves as home to three: Joey, a 50–plus year old Orange Wing Amazon; Göethe, a 19-year old African Gray; and Sylia, a three-year old Blue and Gold Macaw.