JUSTIN RICHARDSON, M.D., is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University.

He received his B.A. with honors in biology, M.A. in social anthropology, and M.D. from Harvard University. He trained in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School, where he was Chief Resident. He has received awards from the American Medical Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association, and the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry.

Dr. Richardson and his advice to parents have been featured in The New York Times and The Washington Post, on the Today Show, 20/20, and NPR’s Morning Edition, and in numerous magazines including Parents, Parenting, Child, Family Circle, Details, and Town and Country. Over the past several years, Dr. Richardson has lectured to parents and teachers at dozens of schools throughout the United States on parenting and the sexual development of children.

Dr. Richardson has been a contributing editor of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry for over ten years and is a contributing author of the forthcoming Oxford Concise Guide to Psychotherapy. He maintains a private practice in psychiatry and psychoanalysis in Manhattan.

MARK A. SCHUSTER, M.D., Ph.D., is an associate professor of pediatrics and public health at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and co-director of the Center for Research on Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health at RAND, the Santa Monica think tank. Dr. Schuster obtained his B.A. summa cum laude from Yale, his M.D. from Harvard, his M.P.P. from the Kennedy School of Government, and his Ph.D. from the RAND Graduate School. His pediatric internship and residency training were at Harvard’s Boston Children’s Hospital, and his fellowship training was with the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA.

As founding director of the CDC-sponsored UCLA/RAND Center for Adolescent Health Promotion, he researches the role of parents in promoting children’s health. He conducted a groundbreaking study on the sexual practices of adolescent virgins and one of the first evaluations of a high school condom availability program. He is currently leading an NIH-funded research project that helps parents learn communication skills for talking with their kids about sexual matters, and he often talks to parents and professionals about addressing challenging topics with kids.

Dr. Schuster is the author of many articles in academic journals on child and adolescent health issues, and he is an editor of the book Child Rearing in America: Challenges Facing Parents with Young Children (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Dr. Schuster and his work have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, Child Magazine, Parents Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, and Salon, and on Good Morning America, CNN, NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered, ESPN, and the KTLA Morning News. He is the 2003 winner of the Nemours Child Health Services Research Award. He practices pediatrics at the Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

Email the authors here: comments@richardsonschuster.com

Author photographs:
Jill LeVine (Richardson)
Diane Baldwin (Schuster)