George Tarjan; Specialized in Child Psychiatry
George Tarjan, a psychiatrist specializing in child development and mental retardation who was credited with forming a national network of mental retardation centers during the John F. Kennedy Administration, is dead.
A spokesman for UCLA said Tarjan, a professor emeritus at the School of Medicine, was 79 when he died Dec. 7 of heart failure. Tarjan was a fund-raiser for the university’s Mental Retardation Research Center and developer of the Child Psychiatry Program at UCLA.
Tarjan came to UCLA in 1960 as professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences. He had been president of the American Psychiatric Assn., the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Assn. of Mental Deficiency. He also was director emeritus of the Division of Mental Retardation and Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Institute.
In 1977, President Jimmy Carter named him to the President’s Commission on Mental Health.
A memorial service will be held Dec. 30 at 10:30 a.m. in the Neuropsychiatric Institute Auditorium.
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