
Adrienne Adams, MD, MS, is a board member of ISAM. She graduated from Wayne State School of Medicine in 1997, where she received the Distinguished Medical Student Award from the Department of Psychiatry in 1997. She completed her General Psychiatry residency and Child and Adolescent fellowship at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Dr. Adams was Chief Fellow for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry residency in 2002-03. She received her master’s in clinical research from Rush University, Graduate College in 2012.
Dr. Adams has been on faculty at Rush University since 2005 as an Assistant Professor where she has worn many hats including: interim inpatient medical director, CL director, outpatient medical director, and fellowship training director 2007-2021. In August 2020, she was promoted to Associate Professor, in psychiatry and has worked in the medical college as an advisor for the class of 2022, course facilitator within the graduate college for the Interpersonal Education section (2017-2021), and the co-director for the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation Jay G. Hirsch Medical Student Fellowship, UIC- Rockford campus (2021-current). She has always been an advocate for child issues and has been interviewed by WGN Radio 720, Chicago Tribune, PBS local affiliate, WGN podcasts, a panel discussant with the honorable Illinois Speaker of the House Welch, and the CBS local news. In 2021, Dr. Adams became the first African-American female medical director for the Rosecrance Griffin Williamson campus and was inducted into the American College of Psychiatrists in 2023.
Since early in her training, Dr. Adams has been involved with the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), American Medical Association (AMA), and American Psychiatric Association (APA). As a fellow, she was the AMA Delegate-Resident and Fellow Section, where she first began attending the assembly meetings. She has served on the Illinois Council of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (ICCAP) board for multiple terms, treasurer, alternate delegate for the regional assembly, delegate, and President of ICCAP as the first African-American female in the Illinois Psychiatric Society, she has been a councilor, board member, and treasurer. Annually, she attends Advocacy Day in D.C. where she promotes mental health issues on the national level. Dr. Adams has also served on the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2008 and 2019 AACAP Annual Meeting in Chicago where she was the Chair for the Monitors Board.
Dr. Adams became a Distinguished Fellow in AACAP (2019) and in APA (2021). She is enthusiastic regarding justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion issues and has held DEI roles within organizations including AADPRT as the inaugural chair of the JEDI (formerly DEI) committee (2018-2022), and within the Illinois Psychiatric Society (IPS) she has served as co-chair for the Health Equity and Antiracism Committee (HEAR-C).