National Program Office

Direction and technical assistance for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars are provided by Stanford University which serves as the National Program Office (NPO).

Iris F. Litt, M.D.
National Director

Iris F. Litt, M.D. has been National Director of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholars since its establishment in 2002. Prior to that, she was a member of the National Advisory Committee of the Generalist Physician Faculty Scholars Program of the Foundation. She is also past National Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program.

Dr. Litt joined the Stanford University faculty in 1976. Prior to that, she had been a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she was the founding Director of the health care program at the Juvenile Hall of the city of New York (Spofford) and, later, at the Adolescent Remand Shelter of the Rikers Island Prison.

In l976 she founded the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Stanford, which she led until 2003. In 1990 she was appointed as Director of the Institute of Research on Women and Gender, a position she held for seven years, co-terminus with her medical school responsibilities. Over the past twenty-five years, Dr. Litt's research has focused on health problems of adolescents, including substance abuse, prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, compliance with medical regimens, and, most recently, the long-term consequences of eating disorders in young adolescent women. Her work in prisons led to the development of standards for health care delivery to juvenile detainees and prisoners.

 She is considered one of the founders of the field of Adolescent Medicine: a Charter Member and past President of the Society for Adolescent Medicine and a member of the first Sub-Board Committee for Adolescent Medicine. Dr. Litt has published extensively in both the scholarly and lay literature. From 1990 to 2004, she was the Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Adolescent Health. Under her editorship, the journal has expanded from quarterly to monthly publication and the impact factor quadrupled.

The recipient of numerous awards from professional organizations, Dr. Litt was elected to membership in the Institute for Medicine of the National Academy of Science in 1995. In 2002, she was awarded the Marron and Mary Elizabeth Kendrick Professorship in Pediatrics by Stanford University. In 2007 she became Emerita. She is the immediate past Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the first woman (and first physician) Director in the Center’s 55 year history.