M. Katherine Shear, MD is the Marion E. Kenworthy Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University and the founding Director of the Center for Prolonged Grief at Columbia School of Social Work.

During her career as a clinical researcher she has conducted studies in anxiety disorders, depression, and grief. Her research studies and clinical supervision included a wide range of psychotherapy methods e.g. CBT, DBT, EFT, IPT, and MI. She began studying complicated grief in the mid 1990’s. For the last two decades, she has focused on understanding and treating people who experience persistent, intense grief.

A 2005 JAMA publication of her work introduced her novel integrated psychotherapy, prolonged grief therapy (PGT) (previously called complicated grief therapy: CGT), as the first treatment for prolonged grief found to be efficacious in a randomized controlled trial. The second study, replicated this result in older adults and a third 4-site study published in 2016, the only randomized medication trial for this condition, did not confirm efficacy of antidepressants. Dr. Shear has regularly worked with community partners, including mental health clinics, city and state agencies and Black Baptist Churches in conducting these studies and in disseminating the results.

In recognition of her work, the Provost at Columbia University authorized the establishment of the Center for Prolonged Grief in 2013. This Center conducts research and provides grief education to the general public and to a wide range of professionals, e.g. through hosting a website, holding monthly webinars open to the public and continuing education workshops for professionals. They collaborate with clinician scholars around the world. They were instrumental in the process of inclusion of PGD in DSM-5-TR.

Dr. Shear graduated with honors from the University of Chicago and attended Tufts University Medical College. After completing residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and a research fellowship in psychosomatic medicine, she joined the faculty at Cornell where she established the department’s first clinical research program in Anxiety Disorders. She served as Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh before moving to Columbia. Dr. Shear is recipient of Clinical and Research awards from Association of Death Education and Counseling, a lifetime Achievement Award from the Neurobiology of Grief International Network and the 2024 Award for Research in Psychiatry by the American Psychiatric Association.