Professor Eliot Sorel, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A., is an internationally recognized medical leader, practicing psychiatric physician, educator, and health systems policy advisor. He directs and teaches courses in Health Systems, Health Diplomacy, and Global Governance and in Global Mental Health in the School of Public Health and Health Services at the George Washington University where he has professorial appointments in Global Health, Health Services Management and Leadership as well as in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine. He is also the founder and chairman of the World Youth Democracy Forum at the Elliott School of International Affairs. Dr. Sorel is former President and Chairman of the Board of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia, former President of the World Association for Social Psychiatry and of the Washington Psychiatric Society. He has served as a National Institutes of Health grants reviewer. In 1990 he founded the Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution Section of the World Psychiatric Association. He is a Life Member of the American Medical Association, a Fellow of the American College of Psychiatrists, and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He obtained his B.A. from New York University, M.D. from the State University of New York and psychiatric training at Yale University. He has developed and led health systems in the Caribbean and North America, has consulted and taught in more than twenty countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. In addition to his academic, clinical practice, health policy and professional organizations activities, Dr. Sorel has served as an advisor on health systems for the Pan American and World Health Organizations, and as a print & electronic media commentator on health related matters. He is the author or coauthor of more than sixty scientific papers, book chapters and the editor of six books. His latest book, The Marshall Plan: Lessons Learned for the 21st Century, is available at OECD in Paris and accessible online at OECD in Paris.  In 2008 Dr. Sorel organized a coalition of academic centers, governmental, nongovernmental, and professional organizations and convened the Lancet Global Mental Health Series, Americas’ Launch at PAHO/WHO in Washington, D.C., a catalytic and historic event promoting the integration of scientific evidence, advocacy and health policy with the goal of enhancing access to care and ending discrimination against the mentally ill, globally.