Coles, Robert.

Time magazine has called Robert Coles the most influential living psychiatrist in the U.S. Though best known for his work on children, he is also a leading authority on poverty and racial discrimination in the country. He first won recognition for his studies of black children in the South. From these, he has gone on to observe and write about children of other minorities (Native Americans, Inuit, and Chicanos) and in other stressful or disadvantaged situations (migrant camps, ghettos, Appalachia, and Northern Ireland.) Through his writings and testimony before congressional committees, he has sought reform in the areas of race relations, mining conditions, pesticides, health services, and, particularly, hunger and malnutrition. Coles has also written widely on contemporary literature, religion, psychology, and other dimensions of American culture.

Coles was born October 12, 1929, in Boston. He earned his B.A. from Harvard in 1950 and his M.D. from Columbia in 1954, after which he decided to become a child psychiatrist and continued his training through into the Air Force and served as chief of neuropsychiatric services at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.

...