About us
Mindsite is a medical informatics solution designed to address the problems faced by humans searching for information on mental health. There's an unusually large degree of information asymmetry in the mental healthcare market. Internal medicine physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, alternative healthcare providers, and other professionals disagree over best practices for generating diagnoses as well as treatment modalities. People find themselves in a confusing and chaotic world when clarity is most needed.
For news and updates about Mindsite and the mental health industrial complex, read our blog.
Team
David Eraker - Founder and CEO. Mr. Eraker is the founder and former CEO of Redfin, a leading Internet based residential real estate brokerage in many US metro markets. Mr. Eraker raised the company’s first round of angel investment and Series A from the Madrona Venture Group. He led product and business development through the company’s B round of financing from Vulcan Capital. Prior to Mindsite, Mr. Eraker took a lot of time off. Before this break, he was the VP of Business Development for Coolearth Technologies, a supply chain management software provider focused on process as opposed to discrete manufacturing, including chemical and food manufacturers as clients. Mr. Eraker also worked at Elixis, a developer of Web-based medical records eventually acquired by GE Medical Systems. He also worked at a company called ThinkView. Mr. Eraker holds a BS in Biochemistry from the University of Washington and briefly attended the University of Washington School of Medicine. In his spare time, he is the treasurer for the Puget Sound Symphony Orchestra and tries to ski when possible.
Sam Kinney - Chairman. Mr. Kinney specializes in early stage venture investing where he can have substantial side-by-side involvement with the management team during the crucial first 18 months of company development. In this capacity, he has made investments in Woburn-MA based Kiva Systems, Madison-WI based Next Testing, and Salt Lake City based 3-Form Material Solutions. An accomplished entrepreneur, Mr. Kinney was co-founder, Executive VP, and director of Pittsburgh based FreeMarkets, which grew from inception to $180 million in revenue in six years. At FreeMarkets, he touched nearly every aspect of the business and led their record-setting 1999 IPO as acting CFO. Mr. Kinney has been a consultant with McKinsey & Co., Booz-Allen & Hamilton, and a finance manager for an aerospace manufacturer now part of Goodrich Aerospace. Mr. Kinney holds an undergraduate degree and MBA from Dartmouth.
Advisors
Ronald C. Kessler, PhD - Head of Scientific Advisory Panel. Dr. Kessler is a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. He is the principal investigator of the National Comorbidity Survey, the first nationally representative survey of the prevalence and correlates of psychiatric disorders in the United States. He also co-directs the World Health Organization's (WHO) World Mental Health surveys, a series of nationally representative epidemiological surveys carried out in 28 countries with a combined sample size of over 200,000 respondents. Dr. Kessler received his MA and PhD in sociology from New York University. He was on the faculty at the University of Michigan for 17 years before taking his current position at Harvard in 1996. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, as well as of the MacArthur Foundation networks in successful midlife development and development and psychopathology. He is the recipient of Research Scientist and MERIT Awards from the National Institute of Mental Health and is the author of over 500 scientific publications concerned with the epidemiology of mental disorders.
Lenard A. Adler, MD - Scientific Advisor. Dr. Adler has been the Director of the Adult ADHD Program in the Departments of Psychiatry at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine in New York, New York since 1995. He is also Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent at the NYU School of Medicine. He obtained a BA in Economics from the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University in 1978. He earned his MD from Emory University School of Medicine in 1982, and went on to serve an internship in Medicine, Neurology, and Psychiatry, followed by a residency in Psychiatry, acting as Chief Resident from 1983 to 1986, at NYU School of Medicine.
He has been interviewed numerous times in national media venues, including 60 Minutes and the Today Show, as well as The New York Times, USA Today and U.S. News & World Report, discussing his treatment methods for adults with ADHD.
Dr. Adler has been a principle contributor to numerous new treatment trials in ADHD and in the development of new scales to diagnose and evaluate symptoms of adult ADHD.
A Diplomat in Psychiatry to the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Dr. Adler is board-certified by the National Board of Medical Examiners. He is an active investigator and frequent lecturer, who has authored and coauthored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He is also author of the popular book on Adult ADHD: SCATTERED MINDS, G.P. Putnam’s Sons 2006.
Andrew A. Nierenberg, MD - Scientific Advisor. Dr. Nierenberg is Co-Director of the Bipolar Clinic and Research Program, and the Associate Director of the Depression Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. He is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York. 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. In 1992, Dr. Nierenberg joined the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
He has published over 230 original articles and 30 chapters and reviews, and 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 then two sequential NARSAD Independent Investigator Awards. In 2005, he was elected as a member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP). Dr. Nierenberg helped plan, conduct, and manage 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, combined, included over 8,000 thousand participants with mood disorders.
As of 2005, Dr. Nierenberg became the Director of the NIMH Bipolar Trials Network, a new infrastructure for the next generation of bipolar disorder clinical trials, which has started an effectiveness trial of low dose lithium alone or in combination with optimized treatment. His primary interests are treatment resistant depression, bipolar depression, and the longitudinal course of affective disorders. Dr. Nierenberg lectures extensively, both nationally and internationally, teaches and supervises clinicians and researchers, maintains an active clinical practice, conducts clinical trials funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and industry, was a member of the NIMH Initial Review Group for Intervention Research, and peer reviews studies for multiple psychiatric journals.
Mark Pollack, MD - Scientific Advisor. Dr. Mark Pollack is Director of the Center for Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Disorders at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He received his M.D. in 1982 from New Jersey Medical School, and completed residency and fellowship training in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr Pollack has received federal funding from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study the longitudinal course of panic disorder, the application of cognitive- behavioral interventions for the reduction of illicit drug use in drug abusers, the impact of terrorist attacks on the development of PTSD and course of disorder in bipolar patients, changes in brain function as assessed by MR Spectroscopy and neuropsychological testing in patients on methadone maintenance, treatment response and pharmacogenetics in refractory social anxiety disorder, and the and use of d-cycloserine to enhance the treatment efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy in social anxiety and panic disorder. He has published over 300 articles, reviews and chapters, and is co-editor of the books "Challenges in Clinical Practice: Pharmacologic and Psychosocial Strategies", "Panic Disorder and Its Treatment," and "Social Phobia: Research and Practice". Dr. Pollack is editor-in-chief of the journal CNS Neuroscience and Therapeutics, lectures widely in national and international forum, serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards, including the Board of Directors of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Institute of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and is Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America.
His areas of clinical and research interest include the acute and long- term course, pathophysiology and treatment of patients with anxiety disorders and associated comorbidities, development of novel pharmacologic agents for mood and anxiety disorders, uses of combined cognitive- behavioral and pharmacologic therapies for treatment refractory patients, presentation and treatment of anxiety in the medical setting, and the pathophysiology and treatment of substance abuse.
Murray B. Stein, MD, MPH - Scientific Advisor. Dr. Stein is Professor of Psychiatry and Family & Preventive Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), where he directs the Anxiety & Traumatic Stress Disorders Program. Dr. Stein graduated from the University of Manitoba and completed his residency and post-residency fellowship at the University of Toronto and at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. He later completed a Master of Public Health degree at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. His research interests include the epidemiology, neurobiology, and treatment of anxiety disorders especially social phobia, panic disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Dr. Stein has written or co-written over 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles on these topics, including publications in journals such as The Lancet, Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Psychiatry, and Archives of General Psychiatry. His federally funded research includes studies of interventions for anxiety disorders in primary care, pharmacological approaches to treatment-resistant anxiety disorders, and functional neuroimaging research in anxiety and trauma-related disorders. He is a member of the Board of Directors and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America (ADAA), a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and Deputy Editor for the journal Depression & Anxiety. Dr. Stein chaired the American Psychiatric Association Workgroup to Revise the Panic Disorder Treatment Guidelines (2006-2008), He is currently a member of the DSM-V Anxiety Workgroup, and Chair of the NIH Interventions in Mood and Anxiety (ITMA) Review Group (2006-2009).
Byron McCann - Advisor. Mr. McCann is managing partner of Ascent Partners Group, a clean technology company advisory firm, venture partner at Prism Capital, and CEO of Ajuga Biosciences, a sustainable chemical technology company using plants as green factories. He is Co-chair and President of the NW Energy Angels and is the NW Co-Chair of the Clean Tech Open, a clean tech business competition. He serves on the board of Northwest Entrepreneur Network and Broadway Bound Children's Theatre as is an advisor to NatureMapping and HomeSavvi. He was formerly Vice Chairman of the Washington Technology Industry Association. Mr. McCann has held executive positions with Ernst and Young, Pacific Communications (acquired by TCI), genSoft (acquired by Computer Associates), MediaLink, and Corum Group. Mr. McCann has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and an MBA from Stanford.
Stephen Eraker, MD - Advisor. Dr. Stephen Eraker has been involved in academic medicine, research, and clinical practice for over 30 years. He has held a number of hospital appointments and is currently practicing in Bend, Oregon. Dr. Eraker is the author of numerous scientific publications on medical decision making, including Bayesian approaches. Dr. Eraker holds an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, an M.D. from Oregon Health Sciences University, and an M.P.H from Harvard School of Public Health.