Trevor Reitz Hadley, professor emeritus CE (clinician-educator) of psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine and the founder and founding director of Penn’s Center for Mental Health, died on October 29, 2020 due to complications from post-polio syndrome. He was 74.

Despite his bout with polio, Dr. Hadley saw the disabilities he incurred as a challenge to be conquered. He attended Oberlin University, then finished his BA at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1968. He received an MS in 1971 and a PhD in psychology in 1973, both from the University of Pittsburgh. Afterwards, he served as State Mental Health Deputy Commissioner for Pennsylvania, then as Commissioner of Mental Health for Maryland. In these positions, he gained a unique perspective on the relationship between policy and services research and made strides towards crossing the boundaries between public mental policy and research environments. He served as a consultant to many state and national organizations and worked on many federally-funded projects that studied implementation of mental health programs. 

In 1986, Dr. Hadley joined Penn’s faculty as a lecturer in the School of Medicine’s department of psychiatry. In 1988, he was promoted to associate professor, and a year later, he became an associate professor CE. He became a full professor in 1997. At Penn, Dr. Hadley’s research focused on the impact of financing mechanisms like managed care on the quality of care delivered in the public mental health system, as well as the issues of homelessness and mental health. In 2000, his project Primary Care Physicians as Mental Health Providers: A Survey in Three Countries won a University Research Foundation (URF) research award.

Dr. Hadley founded the Penn Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, today known as the Penn Center for Mental Health. The Center fostered collaboration between public mental health systems managing mental health services research programs. In his capacity as founding director, Dr. Hadley collaborated with mental health programs in England, Canada, Japan, and Turkey and with the World Health Organization. In the Philadelphia community, he launched a Fellowship Community Psychiatry program that trained young psychiatrists for future leadership roles in public mental health systems.

In 2007, Dr. Hadley co-founded Kids Integrated Data System (KIDS) with John Fantuzzo from GSE and Dennis Culhane from SP2 (Almanac April 10, 2007). KIDS was a groundbreaking collaboration between Penn, the City of Philadelphia, and the School District of Philadelphia that linked data about Philadelphia children from various sources to form a coherent archive that helped researchers tailor services to fit the children’s needs. Dr. Hadley’s research was widely published and earned him a secondary appointment at Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice and a Senior Fellowship of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics (LDI). Dr. Hadley was a member of Penn’s 25-year club; in 2014, he retired and took emeritus status. 

Dr. Hadley is survived by his wife Cheryl Borck-Hadley, his daughter Jennifer Borck-Hadley (Chris Williams), his grandsons Daniel and Samuel, and a large extended family. A memorial service will be planned later in 2021.