Paula J. Clayton

Paula Jean Clayton (December 1, 1934 – September 4, 2021) was an American psychiatrist. She was the first female chairperson of a major psychiatric department in the United States. She is known for destigmatising mental illness, rigorous data driven research methods to study psychiatry, especially depression and bipolar disorder.

Early life and education Paula Jean Limberg was born on December 1, 1934, in St. Louis, Missouri. She was one of three daughters born to Oscar Limberg and his wife, Dorothea Pflasterer. Her father worked for a clothing company, and her mother was a suffragist.

Career Clayton worked as an intern at St. Luke's Hospital and subsequently specialized in psychiatry during her residency at Barnes and Renard Hospitals. She was promoted to full professor in 1976.

In 1980, four years later, Clayton became the first woman in the United States to chair a department of psychiatry, when she left for the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Personal life Paula Clayton had a daughter and two sons with Charles Clayton, whom she later divorced. In 2015, Clayton retired and moved to Pasadena, California, where she died on September 4, 2021, of a viral infection.

Legacy Paula Clayton worked to destigmatise mental illness and "was the first person to demonstrate, through research, that bereavement, while phenotypically mirroring the symptoms of depressive illness, is a distinct, non-clinical entity". As a female chair of the University of Minnesota's Department of Psychiatry in 1980, Clayton brought equality to the department, including equal pay, raising female faculty members’ salaries to match their male counterparts.