Professor of Psychiatry, Emeritus
Alvin Francis Poussaint, MD, was born in New York City, New York, in 1934. He attended Stuyvesant High School and Columbia University. He graduated from Columbia in 1956 with a bachelor's degree in pharmacology. He enrolled in Cornell Medical School, and earned his medical degree in 1960. He became chief resident at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute in 1964, but left the position to become the Southern Field Director of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in Jackson, Mississippi in 1965. Dr. Poussaint also participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery to ensure that demonstrators would have medical care if needed.
In 1967, after leaving Mississippi, he joined the Tufts Medical School faculty and in 1969, joined Harvard Medical School as associate dean of student affairs. From 1975 to 1978, he was Dean of Students at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Poussaint served as Faculty Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Harvard Medical School until his retirement in 2019 and was the founding Director of the Office of Recruitment & Multicultural Affairs in 1969.
Dr. Poussaint's oral history interview is closed to researchers until 2025, please contact chm@hms.harvard.edu for more information.
