Ralph Kupka

M.D., Ph.D.
Psychiatrist

Work address: GGZinGeest | Oldenaller 1 | 1081 HJ Amsterdam | Netherlands
Mobile: +31 – 6 – 22 20 50 80 | email: r.kupka@planet.nl

Ralph Kupka, M.D., Ph.D, (1957) received his medical and psychiatric training at the Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Subsequently he worked at the AMC (1990-1995), the University Medical Center Utrecht (1995-2003), and was director of the Psychiatric Residency Training Program and the Bipolar Disorders Program at the Altrecht Institute for Mental Health Care in Utrecht (2004-2010). From 2010 until June 2024 he was professor of psychiatry, especially bipolar disorders, at Amsterdam University Medical Center /VU University. Next to his research and teaching activities, he is currently working as a consultant psychiatrist at the bipolar disorders outpatient programs at three mental health centers in the Netherlands. He was one of the principal investigators of the Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network, a collaboration of academic centers in the United States, the Netherlands, and Germany from 1995 to 2002. He received his PhD-graduation in 2003 on clinical and immunological studies of rapid cycling bipolar disorder. He has authored and co-authored some 300 articles and book chapters on mood disorders. He was editor-in-chief of the first (2008) and second (2022) edition of the Dutch Handbook of Bipolar Disorders. He is chairman of the Dutch Guideline Committee for Bipolar Disorders (2015; 2025). From 2004 to 2023 he was president of the Dutch Foundation of Bipolar Disorders (www.kenbis.nl), and received the KenBiS / Willem Nolen Oeuvre Award in 2023. Since 2020 he is Vice-president of the International Society for Bipolar Disorders (ISBD), and received the ISBD / Mogens Schou Award for Education and Teaching in 2021. He is honorary member and recipient of the Fred Bos Award of the Dutch Patient Association for Bipolar Disorder (Plusminus). In 2025 he received the Pieter Baan Oeuvre Award from the Dutch Association of Psychiatry.