Dr. Nierenberg is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, NewYork. He did his residency in psychiatry at New York University/Bellevue Hospital in New York City. He then went on to become a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Yale University, studying clinical epidemiology. He continued his trek north to join the faculty at Harvard, first to direct one of the Affective Disorders Inpatient Units and then to direct the Affective Disorders Outpatient Unit at McLean Hospital in Belmont MA. Dr. Nierenberg then joined the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where he is currently Associate Director of the Depression Clinical and Research Program and Medical Director of the Bipolar Programs, as well as Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Having published over 150 original articles, chapters, reviews, and abstracts, Dr. Nierenberg has been listed among the best doctors in North America for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders since 1994. In 2000, he was awarded the NDMDA Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award and a NARSAD Independent Investigator Award. Dr. Nierenberg is currently involved in both the Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder (STEP-BD) and the Sequential Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) NIMH contracts, two unprecedented clinical trials that will include thousands of patients with mood disorders. He is also the Principal Invesitigator for a 3-site NIMH /NCCAM study of St.John’s Wort for Minor Depression. This has led to his appointment as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Bernard Osher Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

His primary interests are treatment resistant depression, bipolar depression, juvenile bipolar disorder, and the longitudinal course of affective disorders. Dr. Nierenberg lectures extensively, both nationally and internationally, teaches, maintains an active clinical practice, conducts clinical trials funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and industry, is a member of the NIMH Initial Review Group for Intervention Research and peer reviews studies for multiple psychiatric journals.