Marisa Giggie, MD, MPAff
Associate Professor and Vice Chair, Behavioral Health Fellowship Director
Dr. Marisa Giggie is associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the College of Community Health Sciences. She also directs the College's Behavioral Health in Primary Care Fellowship. She is fellowship trained and ABPN board certified in general, child and adolescent, forensic and community psychiatry. Giggie cares for patients in her psychiatric clinic at University Medical Center, which the College operates. She is also chief psychiatrist and director of mental health services for the Tuscaloosa County Jail and psychiatrist for the Tuscaloosa City Schools Children’s Program, a school-based multidisciplinary program for children with severe mental health concerns. In addition, she provides forensic psychiatric consultations for clients.
Giggie has also been medical director and chief psychiatrist for a substance rehabilitation program and has worked in various levels of care treating mentally ill children, including intensive residential treatment, moderate group homes, inpatient care, therapeutic foster care and early intervention autism services. She spent several years as one of The University of Alabama’s primary psychiatrists, treating students with mental health issues.
She teaches third- and fourth-year medical students, family medicine residents and behavioral medicine fellows in both clinical and traditional didactic settings. Her research interests include the criminalization of the mentally ill, violence prevention, addiction, student mental health and physician mental health. She has publications on such topics as college mental health, violence prevention, addiction and access to care issues.
Giggie received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., and a master’s degree in public affairs from The LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. She focused on public health access issues and worked for two years in health-care consulting. She completed a post-baccalaureate degree in pre-medical studies at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania before completing medical school at Medical College of Pennsylvania/Hahnemann School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Giggie completed a residency in psychiatry, a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry and a fellowship in forensic psychiatry at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in San Antonio. She was chief resident in child and adolescent psychiatry.
She is a member of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She has been recognized as a Distinguished Fellow by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.