Michael First, MD

Michael B. First, MD, is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University, and is a Research Psychiatrist at the Biometrics Department at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and maintains a psychopharmacology practice in Manhattan, Dr. First is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on psychiatric diagnosis and assessment issues and has conducted expert forensic psychiatric evaluations in both civil and criminal matters, including the 2006 trial of the 9/11 terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.

Dr. First is the Editor and Co-chair of the DSM-5 text revision project (DSI-5-TR), the Editorial and Coding Consultant for the DSM-5, the chief technical and editorial consultant on the World Health Organization's ICD-11 revision project, and was an external consultant to the NIMH Research Domain Criteria project.

Dr. First got his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University, received a Masters in Computer Science and a Medical Degree from the University of Pittsburgh, did his psychiatry residency at Columbia University, and did a fellowship in Biometrics Research under the direction of his mentor, Dr. Robert Spitzer.

He was the Editor of the DSM-IV-TR, the Editor of Text and Criteria for DSM-IV and the APA's Handbook on Psychiatric Measures. He has co-authored and co-edited a number of books, including A Research Agenda for DSM-V, the DSM-IV-TR Guidebook, the DSM-5 Handbook for Differential Diagnosis, and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5).