Debra Pinals , M.D.

Debra Pinals M.D.


Position: Expert Facilitator
Mappings of Focus:Sequential Intercept Model Mapping Workshops, Competence to Stand Trial
Sequential Intercept Model Mapping Workshops Competence to Stand Trial

Debra Pinals is a clinical professor of psychiatry and director of the Program in Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics at the University of Michigan. She also serves as the Medical Director of Behavioral Health and Forensic Programs for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. She served as the Assistant Commissioner of Forensic Services for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health from 2008 until her transition to Michigan in March 2016. She was a schizophrenia research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health. Over her career, she has worked in community mental health, forensic hospitals, correctional facilities, emergency rooms, and court clinics. She has been the principal investigator on several federal grants related to prisoner reentry and specialty courts, examining services for individuals with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders, and criminogenic risks. She is a past President of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law and a past chair of the Forensic Division of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. She is a co-developer of MISSION-Criminal Justice, a manualized intervention that links approaches to caring for justice-involved individuals with mental illness, substance use challenges, and trauma histories with efforts to decrease criminal recidivism as part of recovery.

Dr. Pinals graduated from The Ohio State University College of Medicine in 1989 and trained in psychiatry and forensic psychiatry through Harvard Medical School residencies.