Dr. Allen attended Florida State University, received his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina and trained in psychiatry at the Institute of Living where he served as Chief Resident. He went on to serve on the faculty of Cornell and later New York University School of Medicine. While at NYU, he developed the model Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program at Bellevue Hospital, mentioned in New York Magazine's "Best Hospitals in New York." 

Currently he is medical director of the University of Colorado Hospital Psychiatry Department and director of research at the University of Colorado Depression Center, part of the National Network of Depression Centers. He was a principal investigator in the NIMH Systematic Treatment Enhancement Program for Bipolar Disorder and other studies in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He developed and validated the Clinical Global Impression for Schizoaffective Disorder, has served as a research trainer internationally and received a NARSAD Independent Investigator award for the study of agitation. He is now helping to launch ED-SAFE, the NIH Emergency Department Safety and Follow-up Evaluation suicide screening and prevention study.      

 

He has served as president of the American Association for Emergency Psychiatry and vice president of the International Association for Emergency Psychiatry, chair of the American Psychiatric Association Task Force on Psychiatric Emergency Services, panelist for the Expert Consensus Guideline for Bipolar Disorder and the Colorado Clinical Guidelines Collaborative Depression Program, lead expert for the Expert Consensus Guideline for the Management of Behavioral Emergencies, member of the American College of Emergency Physicians clinical policy committee and reviewer for the Cochrane Collaborative. He is the author or editor of three books and associate editor of General Hospital Psychiatry. He is board certified in psychiatry with added qualifications in addictions and is a certified QPR suicide prevention gatekeeper instructor. He is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Colorado Denver and a Distinguished Fellow of the APA.