Jhilam Biswas ‘05

Jhilam Biswas ’05 first joined the Dartmouth Alumni Council as a Councilor-at-Large in 2019 and has since chaired the Honorary Degrees Committee, supported multiple trustee and committee selections and chaired the Nominating and Alumni Trustee Search Committee. During her tenure on the Alumni Council, she has engaged widely with alumni groups, giving a talk to the Dartmouth Lawyers Association on psychological trauma in New York City and serving as a panelist with Dean Scott Brown for Foundations for Success: Mental Health and Wellbeing at Dartmouth at the 223rd Alumni Council meeting.

Professionally, Jhilam is a psychiatrist specializing in Psychiatry & Law (forensic psychiatry). She is the Director of the Psychiatry, Law, and Society Program at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. Her work focuses on mental health consultation to social institutions—including courts, jails, schools, and employers—and on strengthening mental health laws to support patients, families, and communities. She is deeply committed to cultural competency in psychiatric care and reforming the criminal legal system through research, teaching, and clinical practice. In 2025–2026, she is serving as President of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society and previously received its Early Career Outstanding Psychiatrist Award in 2023.

After medical school at the University of Massachusetts and residency at Harvard, Jhilam spent six years practicing forensic psychiatry at a strict-security forensic hospital and in the years after, served as a college mental health psychiatrist—an experience that solidified her passion for youth mental health. Today, she is a Consult-Liaison Psychiatrist in the Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, with a growing focus on the intersection of social media, schools, and adolescent wellbeing.

Jhilam’s commitment to service traces back to her Dartmouth years. As a sociology major, she founded the Dartmouth Coalition for Global Health (now one of the largest student-run organizations on campus) and launched Standpoints, a student journal on global health experiences with classmate Shivani Parmar ‘05. Her leadership was recognized with the Dean of the College Award for Extraordinary Service and the Sociological Imagination Award—honors that continue to shape how she collaborates in her work at the interface of many social systems.

Her Dartmouth memories—from Moosilauke sunrises and Rockapellas rehearsals to work with the Tucker Foundation, Phoenix, Rockefeller Leadership Fellows, and Tri Delt—nurtured her sense of community, purpose, and joy. Those roots inspire her commitment to energizing and uniting the alumni body as President of the Association of Alumni.

Jhilam lives in Newton, Massachusetts with her husband, Danny Barker, and their children, Avi and Raya.