Advances and Challenges in Understanding Tics, Tourette's Disorder and Related Problems

Sponsored by the Hans Lowenbach Memorial Fund

Barbara Coffey, M.D., M.S., is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She has also served as Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry University of Miami Miller School of Medicine since October 1, 2017.

Co-Director of the Tourette Association of America (TAA) Center of Excellence at the University of Miami, Dr. Coffey is an internationally known specialist in tics, Tourette's Disorder and related disorders, such as ADHD, anxiety and OCD. Dr. Coffey was former Chief of the TAA Center of Excellence at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at ISMMS, and Research Psychiatrist at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, New York between 2012 and 2017.

Dr. Coffey served on the faculty of Harvard Medical School at McLean and Massachusetts General Hospitals in Boston between 1992-2001 and was Associate Professor at New York University Langone School of Medicine between 2001-2012. 


Active for many years in leadership positions in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, she is current Deputy Program Chair and will serve as Program Chair starting October 29, 2023. She is also a permanent member of the NIMH Child Psychopathology and Developmental Disabilities Study Section.

Dr. Coffey is the author of more than 200 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals, abstracts and book chapters., Dr. Coffey's research has focused on the clinical course, psychiatric comorbidity, phenomenology, and novel treatments of Tourette's Disorder.