Beatrix Ann Hamburg (née McCleary; October 19, 1923[1] – April 15, 2018) was an American psychiatrist whose long career in academic medicine advanced the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. Hamburg was the first known African-American to attend Vassar College, and was also the first African-American woman to attend Yale Medical School. Hamburg held professorships at Stanford, Harvard, Mt. Sinai and—most recently—at Weill Cornell Medical College. She was on the President's Commission on Mental Health under President Jimmy Carter. Hamburg was a president of the William T. Grant Foundation, and also directed the child psychiatry divisions at Stanford University and Mount Sinai.[2] She originally was going to go into pediatric medicine, but instead found herself interested in psychiatry.[2] She researched early adolescence, peer counseling, and diabetic children and adolescents.[3] She was a member of the National Academy of Medicine[4] and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[5] She received a Foremother Award for her lifetime of accomplishments from the National Research Center for Women & Families in 2012.[6]
Hamburg was married to David A. Hamburg, an academic physician who researched mental health, and the two collaborated on many projects during their careers.