CARMEN LOPEZ-ARVIZU

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Kennedy Krieger Institute

Carmen Lopez-Arvizu, M.D., serves as director of outpatient psychiatric services at Kennedy Krieger Institute. Since 2024, Lopez-Arvizu has focused her medical practice on two intersecting areas: medical care for the Hispanic population and treatment of severe and challenging behaviors in individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Lopez-Arvizu developed a mixed population psychiatric clinic that evolved into the Center of Developmental Behavioral Health, featuring subspecialty components functioning as interdisciplinary hubs. The center provides services for obsessive-compulsive disorder, neuropsychiatric disorders, neurodevelopmental psychiatry and general psychiatry, matching clinician expertise with patient needs through a patient-centered approach.

Her commitment to training the next generation extends across multiple disciplines. Lopez-Arvizu creates and participates in post-graduate training for medical students, physicians, psychologists and social workers through lectures and clinical practice exposure. Her efforts have successfully recruited trainees across disciplines, including hiring the full class of child psychiatry physicians in recent years.

Recognition for her teaching excellence came through the 2022 and 2023 James Harris Award for Excellence in Teaching from the Johns Hopkins Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship. “All of them are very important to me, but the most significant has been the 2022 and 2023 James Harris Award for Excellence in Teaching, Johns Hopkins Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, selected by the people that I teach,” Lopez-Arvizu said.

Her leadership initiatives include developing a Post-Masters Social Work Fellowship in Evidence-Based Psychotherapy, the first of its kind in the tri-state area, now recruiting its second cohort. This program complements existing clinical psychology training and the Johns Hopkins child psychiatry fellowship program.

Lopez-Arvizu views her role as extending beyond traditional physician-healer responsibilities, particularly for patients with neurodevelopmental comorbidities. “Many of our patients fully recover, but many others, due to their neurodevelopmental comorbidities, do not,” she said. “Our role then becomes different. It is not the typical physician-healer, but more of a physician-helping-families-navigate-the-very-dark-agitated-waters-of-uncertainty.”

Honoree profiles were written using an artificial intelligence program and supported by honoree nominations, applications and letters of recommendation. Each profile was reviewed, fact-checked and edited for accuracy by The Daily Record’s editorial staff.

This is an honoree profile from The Daily Record's Hispanic Leadership Awards for 2025. Information used in this profile was sourced from the honoree.