Joffe received his undergraduate degree from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1977, and did his internship at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. He completed one year of his residency in psychiatry at Royal Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa and his second year at McMaster University. From 1983 to ’85, he was a fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, serving first as a consulting psychiatrist in the surgical oncology section and then deputy director of the Consultation-Liaison Service.

The new dean has been a certified fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and a diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology since 1984. In 1996, he was named a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Chairman of the Joint Executive Committee of the Hamilton-Wentworth Academic Health Care Network since 1997, Joffe also serves as an ex-officio member of several hospital boards of trustees and an advisor to five international pharmaceutical companies.

Over the course of his career, he has been awarded over 50 research grants, has delivered more than 500 lectures worldwide, has authored two books and more than 30 chapters for medical textbooks about depression and published more than 250 articles in professional journals. He has held leadership positions with the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and has been a member of the Expert Advisory Committee on Psychiatric Illness of United States Pharmacopoiea since 1990, as well as an editorial board member of four professional journals.

Joffe is the recipient of numerous professional awards, including the Gold Award for Academically Sponsored Programs of the American Psychiatric Association and the Award of Excellence from the Depressive and Manic Depressive Association of Ontario.

He is also the founder of a toll-free depression information and education phone line, launched in Ontario in 1996, that now operates nationally.

Joel A. DeLisa, MD, chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, had served as interim dean of NJMS since July 1, when Ruy V. Lourenco, MD, stepped down after a decade as dean.