Hagop Akiskal
Exploring mood, temperament and their connections
Hagop Akiskal was an Armenian American psychiatrist, born in 1944. He earned his medical degree at the American University of Beirut in 1969 before completing specialist training in the United States. His career included the University of Tennessee and the University of California, San Diego.
Akiskal made influential contributions to research on mood disorders and the bipolar spectrum. He studied cyclothymia, affective temperaments and relationships between different clinical presentations, linking long-term observation with biological investigation.
International collaboration, medical education and attention to patients’ histories were central to his work. He died in 2021, leaving a research legacy that continues to inform discussion in psychiatry.