Kristin Leight, M.D.

Dr. Kristin Leight received her Bachelor’s Degree with Highest Honors in English and Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994 on a Morehead Scholarship, and her M.A. in Classics and English literature from Magdalen College, Oxford University, in 1997 on a British Marshall Scholarship.  She worked as a research assistant and coordinator for psychiatrist Dr. Lori Altshuler at UCLA Mood Disorders Research Program from 1997-98 and 1999-2000 and completed a post baccalaureate premedical course at Bryn Mawr College from 1998-1999. 

After receiving her M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 2004, Dr. Leight completed her psychiatry residency at Columbia University Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute in 2008 as a Chief Resident.  Upon graduation from residency, she worked as an inpatient attending at New York Presbyterian Hospital’s 9 Garden North unit and as an outpatient attending in the Columbia’s Women’s Program.  From 2009-2010, she completed a Fellowship in Women’s Mental Health at Columbia.  From 2010-2014, she worked as an attending at the Columbia Intensive Outpatient Program, outpatient attending at the Columbia Women’s Program and also as the Fellowship Director for the Women’s Mental Health Fellowship at Columbia.  Dr. Leight was an Instructor in Clinical Psychiatry from 2008 to 2011 and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia from 2011 to 2015.  She was awarded the Roger MacKinnon Award for Outstanding Teaching of Psychiatry by the Columbia Psychiatry residency class of 2013. 

Dr. Leight joined the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry in 2015 and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry.  She has been a psychiatry attending in the Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic, led the Mood Disorders inpatient team on Pennsylvania Hospital’s 6 Spruce unit from 2017-2019, and served as Medical Director for Penn Center for Women's Behavioral Wellness 2020-2022.  Dr. Leight was awarded the Earl Bond Award for Excellence in Clinical Education in 2019, the Dean's Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching in 2020 and the Albert Stunkard Faculty Awards in 2020, 2022.  She has served as the Senior Associate Program Director for the Psychiatry Residency since 2017.