Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good received the Silver Magnolia Award from the Shanghai Municipal Government Foreign Affairs Office for her “valuable support to Shanghai’s development and outstanding contributions to our friendly cooperation.” Leading psychiatrists at the Shanghai Mental Health Center—Vice President Dr. Xie Bin, President Dr. Xu Yifeng, and Dr. Qiu Jianyin—nominated Professor Good as well as Professor Byron Good for this award based on “their dedication to mental health services in Shanghai, in China, policy advice, and capacity building of public mental health leaders.” The award program noted that Professors Good and Good “‘fight’ for funds from US NIH and Harvard University and other funding sources to provide training for a large number of young and mid career mental health professionals. Through the years of their effort, they have made significant contributions to forming the city’s mental health policy and transformation of services.”

The nominators are alumni of the Department’s Fogarty International Center-sponsored training program, Building Research Capacity to Improve Mental Health in China across the Lifespan, which Professors Good and Good together with Professor Arthur Kleinman launched in 2012. The program operates in collaboration with the Shanghai Mental Health Center and the Peking University Institute of Mental Health to train young psychiatrists in Shanghai and Beijing in mental health implementation research. China-based faculty are former fellows of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, where they participated in the Training Program in International Mental Health. Professors Good, Good, and Kleinman taught and directed this program, also Fogarty-funded, at Harvard Medical School from 2002 to 2012 as part of the International Clinical, Operational, Health Research Training Award. Dr. Qiu Jianyin one of the nominators, was the first Fogarty Fellow from Shanghai Mental Health Center. She participated in both Fogarty-sponsored programs at Harvard.

Professor Mary-Jo Good received the Silver Magnolia Award for her contributions to educating young Chinese leaders and researchers in the field of mental health and for supporting young women to become leaders in the field of mental health. She considers the award to be an honor both to the Fogarty-funded training programs of the Department and its fellows, as well as to her personally.

Professor Good was among 58 individuals, including four women, from 17 countries who received the Silver Magnolia Award this year. Many recipients were expatriate business leaders of major international corporations, research scientists, teachers and scholars. Since 1989, the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government has conferred the Award in recognition of outstanding contributions of foreigners to Shanghai’s economic, social and cultural development. Dr. Good and fellow awardees each received a medal at the award ceremony held at the Shanghai Municipal Government Conference Center, the Xi-Jiao Hotel, on September 14, 2012. According to the award program, the silver magnolia, “whose petals always look skyward,” is the city’s official flower, “symbolizing a pioneering and enterprising spirit.”

The following photos show Professor Good with Dr. Qiu Jianyin and on stage with Li Mingjun, Director of the Shanghai Foreign Affairs office, award committee members and city leaders, and the Silver Magnolia recipients.