Following a long career in national mental health and health policy, featuring leadership positions in the public, not-for-profit, and private sectors, Leslie Scallet now devotes her time to nonprofits and to personal philanthropy.

As special assistant to the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health during the 1970’s, Ms. Scallet focused on patients’ rights, law and justice systems, and community-based services. She also clerked for Chief Judge David L. Bazelon of the U.S. Court of Appeals (DC Circuit). Moving to the nonprofit world, she was the first director of policy advocacy at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, and then founded the Mental Health Policy Resource Center, supporting efforts to include mental health in national health legislation. She later joined The Lewin Group, becoming Senior Vice President.

Ms. Scallet has volunteered and served on boards for many nonprofit organizations promoting health and intercultural understanding, including the Carter Center Mental Health Program, Health Affairs, Children International, Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, Suicide Prevention Action Network, Consumer Health Foundation, and Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers. Recently, she has focused on organizations promoting civic activism, including public radio stations, Old Greenbelt Theatre, the Gephardt Institute at Washington University, and Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics.

Ms. Scallet was born in St. Louis, received her BA in history from Washington University in St. Louis, and JD from the University of Pennsylvania. She enjoys international travel, sports, opera and theater, and lives in Washington, DC, with her husband Maury Lieberman.