M. Katherine Shear is Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University. As a clinical researcher
she has studied anxiety, depression, and grief. She currently has 350 peer reviewed publications,
including 150 on the topic of grief and she was instrumental in the inclusion of PGD in DSM-5-
TR. Her novel integrated psychotherapy, Prolonged Grief Therapy(PGT), was validated in 3
NIMH-funded randomized controlled trials, with significantly better outcomes than IPT in
midlife and older adults. In a 4-site study of citalopram v placebo with or without PGT, the only
RCT for prolonged grief, PGT with placebo demonstrated significantly better outcome than
citalopram with grief support. The Center for Prolonged Grief was established at Columbia
University under Dr. Shear’s leadership in 2013. The Center has disseminated PGT to th mental
health therapists across the United States and in more than 28 countries. Dr. Shear graduated
with honors from the University of Chicago, attended Tufts University Medical College,
completed residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and a research fellowship in
psychosomatic medicine. She joined the faculty at Payne Whitney Clinic where she established
the department’s first clinical research program in Anxiety Disorders. She then served as
Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh before moving to Columbia. Dr. Shear is
recipient of Clinical and Research awards from Association of Death Education and Counseling,
a lifetime Achievement Award from the Neurobiology of Grief International Network and the
2024 Award for Research in Psychiatry from the American Psychiatric Association.