Lester Grinspoon facts for kids

Lester Grinspoon (June 24, 1928 – June 25, 2020) was an American psychiatrist and long-standing associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He concurrently served as a senior psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston, Massachusetts, for 40 years. Grinspoon was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychiatric Association. He was founding editor of The American Psychiatric Association Annual Review and Harvard Mental Health Letter. Grinspoon was editor of Harvard Mental Health Letter for fifteen years.

Biography

Personal life

Grinspoon was born June 24, 1928, in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Sally and Simon Grinspoon. His family was of Russian Jewish descent. He graduated from Tufts University and Harvard Medical School. He was married and the father of four children, including astrobiologist David Grinspoon and physician and author Peter Grinspoon. His oldest son died of cancer when he was 15. In 2011, he revealed that he had cancer. Throughout his career, he maintained a close friendship with science popularizer and onetime Harvard colleague Carl Sagan.

Lester Grinspoon died in Newton on June 25, 2020, one day after his 92nd birthday.

Promotion attempts

Despite "a career that included pioneering research on schizophrenia, dozens of books and papers, and leadership roles at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and other prestigious institutions," Grinspoon was denied promotion to full professor in 1975 and 1997.

Former colleagues Ming Tsuang and Joseph Coyle have maintained that the denial of Grinspoon's promotion was likely predicated on his perceived neglect of "original research" in favor of "[synthesizing] the work of others".

Media appearances

Grinspoon appeared in an episode of the Showtime series Penn & Teller: ...!. Grinspoon also appeared in the Canadian documentary The Union: The Business Behind Getting High. Australian rock band Grinspoon are named after him.