panelist Judy Rubin

Judy Rubin, PhD, ATR-BC, HLM, began her career as an art teacher and has been an art therapist for almost 60 years. A licensed psychologist and board-certified art therapist, she is on the faculties of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Center. An Art major at Wellesley College, Judy earned a Master's degree at Harvard, a PhD at the University of Pittsburgh, and completed training in Adult and Child Analysis at the Pittsburgh Psychoanalytic Institute. A past President and Honorary Life Member of the American Art Therapy Association. Judy was also the Art Lady for the first three years of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" on public television. Author of seven books and creator of thirteen films, she has recently launched a Training Film Library through Expressive Media, which she co-founded with Ellie Irwin in 1985.

Her earliest work in 1963 was with children, then labeled schizophrenic, who would now be more likely to be identified as being on the spectrum. Her very first film, made at the suggestion of Fred Rogers, was about the creative capacities of blind children with multiple disabilities, and a great deal of her work in addition to many of her films focus on the power of the arts for those who are differently abled and their families. She is recognized as a pioneer in the field of art therapy, and has had a long-lasting interest in writing about as well as making and promoting films demonstrating the value of the arts to all. She is also an award-winning filmmaker, and in 2006 was nominated for the National Medal in the Arts. She served on the Board of the "National Committee*Arts for the Handicapped" (now Very Special Arts) founded by Jeanne Kennedy Smith for its first 6 years.

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