Nathaniel Counts

Nathaniel Z Counts, JD, serves as the Chief Policy Officer for The Kennedy Forum, a national mental health non-profit, as well as Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. In his position with The Kennedy Forum, he advances a public policy agenda aimed at ensuring equitable access to effective and responsive services and supports, within a population health framework that focuses on prevention and social determinants of health. In previous roles, Nathaniel served as Senior Policy Advisor for Mental Health to the Commissioner of Health for the City of New York, where he advised on innovative financing, policy, and research strategies for achieving the city’s mental health goals. Previously, he was the Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health Innovation for Mental Health America (MHA). Nathaniel is a sought-after advisor on mental health policy issues, having served on a range of national committees and in roles such as Senior Fellow for Behavioral Health Policy at the Commonwealth Fund, expert member on the Forum for Promoting Children’s Wellbeing at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and Visiting Scholar with the Outreach & Education Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. His thought leadership and research have been published in journals such as JAMA Pediatrics, Lancet Psychiatry, and Nature Mental Health, and he has presented at annual conferences for societies such as AcademyHealth and the American Society of Health Economists. He received his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was a Student Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, and his BA in biology from Johns Hopkins.