In 1970,
Arnold J. Mandell, the founding chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of California, San Diego, recruited Judd. The two built the department from the ground up, making it a leader in federal research funding. It was while consulting on an outside program to help adolescents with drug problems that Judd met a social worker, Patricia Hoffman, whom he married. Judd succeeded Mandell as department chair in 1977. In 1987, after helping to build the UC San Diego psychiatry department into a leader in biology psychiatry research, he was chosen to take over the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD, the world's largest source of funding for brain and behavior research. As head of the NIMH, he worked with
President George H. W. Bush to put in place the
Decade of the Brain, a designation given to the 1990s by Bush in a collaborative effort between the
Library of Congress and the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) to "enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from
brain research". In 1992, Judd returned to UC San Diego as chair of Department of Psychiatry. He remained there for 36 years (until 2013) and became a recognizable public face in brain science. He also maintained a small clinical practice, specializing in treating severe depression. == Death and legacy ==