Dr. Enrico Castillo is a community psychiatrist, health services researcher, and medical educator. He is the Medical Director for Clinical Innovations and Strategy in the San Francisco County Department of Public Health Behavioral Health Services. In this role he creates and implements new clinical programs, advises health system leaders, collaborates with frontline providers to improve existing services, and enhances data systems to support evaluation and continuous quality improvement. Dr. Castillo was previously an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA and is the co-editor of the forthcoming book, "Homelessness: A Clinical Guide for Providing Mental Health Care for People Experiencing Homelessness," by American Psychiatric Association Publishing. His leadership, research, and medical education work, detailed below, centers on public service, community-government-academic partnerships, and improving the systems and programs that serve individuals with serious mental illness, especially in the areas of homelessness and incarceration.
Dr. Castillo is second-generation Filipino American, born and raised in rural Virginia. He obtained his BA in English from the University of Virginia and his MD with a Concentration in Underserved Populations from the University of Pittsburgh. He completed his psychiatry residency and public psychiatry clinical fellowship at Columbia University, specializing in field-based services for homeless populations. Dr. Castillo completed a 2-year fellowship in health services/health policy research, the UCLA National Clinician Scholars Program (formerly the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program), and obtained his MS in Health Policy and Management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Leadership: Dr. Castillo holds several state and national leadership roles focused on public mental health systems and services, community-public-academic partnerships, physician advocacy, and inter-professional science engagement. He was a member of the California State Council on Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health and was a member of the Sozosei Foundation's Research Advisory Group on Decriminalizing Mental Illnesses. In research and medical education, he is a Behavioral Health Advisory Board Member of the Association of American Medical Colleges, faculty member and mentor in the Career Development Institute for Psychiatry, and holds multiple positions within the American Psychiatric Association and American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training. He was one of three physician members of the New Voices Initiative of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2021-23, second cohort) and is a 2025-28 National Academy of Medicine Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholar.
Research: Dr. Castillo’s program of research focuses on serious mental illness, homelessness, and incarceration, with the aim to improve the capacity of public systems to address health and social inequities. In the roles of PI or Co-PI, he has secured over $1.9 million in research funding and over $4 million in government-academic contracts. He led NIMH-funded projects (K23 and R34) on the jail-to-homelessness pipeline experienced by individuals with serious mental illness. His research has been conducted in close partnership with local, state, and national agencies and community organizations including the US Office of the Surgeon General, the NY State Office of Mental Health, Los Angeles County Departments of Mental Health and Health Services, the RAND Corporation, and Healthy African American Families II. He is a member of the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Systems Research Scientific Merit Review Board for Behavioral, Social, and Cultural Determinants of Health and Care and has previously served on NIH scientific review committees. He is an associate editor for Academic Psychiatry, a column editor for Psychiatric Services, and member of the editorial board of Community Mental Health Journal.
Graduate Medical Education: Dr. Castillo was the founder and program director for the UCLA Public Psychiatry Fellowship Program, which was the first public psychiatry clinical fellowship program in Los Angeles. Dr. Castillo has developed nationally recognized graduate medical education curricula in psychiatry on the topics of public service, structural competency, physician advocacy, and health equity. While at UCLA, Dr. Castillo was the faculty director of community psychiatry education. In that role, he helped to create novel educational offerings to inspire trainees to enter careers in public service, including a 40+ hour curriculum, mentorship program, clinical rotations, several recurring seminar series, advocacy initiatives, and over 20 educational partnerships with health agencies and community organizations. He is a national expert in competency-based education and was selected as one of 18 members of the National Collaborative to Create Foundational Competencies for Undergraduate Medical Education. He is an alumnus of the Harvard Macy Institute Program for Educators in Health Professions. He is the recipient of university and national teaching awards.