Michael Surko, Ph.D., directs the mental health service for children and adolescents entering foster care in New York City. The service, located at the NYC Administration for Children's Services Pre-Placement Center in Manhattan, provides mental health evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment planning; psychopharmacological consultation; psychological assessment; crisis intervention and short-term psychotherapy; consultation to ACS on mental health issues, and liaison with Bellevue Hospital Center psychiatric emergency and inpatient services. He also teaches in the psychology externship and predoctoral internship programs, and provides clinical supervision to psychology predoctoral interns.

Dr. Surko received a B.A. in history from Haverford College and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Miami University. He also completed a Maternal and Child Health Bureau Leadership in Adolescent Health (LEAH) postdoctoral fellowship in clinical psychology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, in the departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry.

Prior to joining the faculty at NYU, Dr. Surko was an attending psychologist at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. At Mount Sinai School of Medicine, he led the ACT for Youth Downstate Center for Excellence in Youth Development. The center, funded by the NY State Department of Health, provided technical assistance and program evaluation for community partnerships aimed at reducing violence, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and educational failure among adolescents in NY State. Dr. Surko also worked with the chief of Adolescent Medicine to establish a research department within the nation's largest comprehensive adolescent health facility.

Dr. Surko's past academic appointments include: assistant professor of Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, NY; assistant professor of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine; and instructor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Dr. Surko has published peer-reviewed journal articles in the areas of community-based collaborative partnerships, primary prevention, positive youth development, adolescent health and risk behaviors, psychotherapy process and outcomes, and program evaluation. He is a member of New York State Psychological Association.