Dr. Eliot Sorel, MD – husband, father, grandfather, friend, healer, teacher, coach, mentor, innovator, internationalist, photographer – passed peacefully on October 13, 2024, at the age of 84.  He is survived by his wife, Christiane E. Sorel, his Son, Marc A. Sorel (wife Maura), his Daughter, Marie-Adele Sorel Kress, MD (husband Jeremy), and his six wonderful grandchildren, Benjamin, Davina, Elias, Olympia, Theodore, and Zeke.

A first generation American, Dr. Sorel lived the American dream. Born in the village of Falticeni, Romania in October 1940, in 1958 his freedom from the Communist regime was purchased for nearly $50,000 (in 2024 currency) by a New York-based uncle, Marcel Halpern, working through a London-based intermediary. Dr. Sorel went to Paris, where he lived with family and studied medicine, initially stateless (the Romanian regime had stripped him of his citizenship as a condition of permitting his emigration). In 1961, at the invitation of the same Uncle, Dr. Sorel immigrated to the United States, electing to come by boat, becoming a proud naturalized citizen.  Working his way through school, Dr. Sorel studied at NYU, the State University of New York-Binghamton, the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Yale, where he would meet his future wife. After a pioneering two-year stint establishing mental health services in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he moved to Washington DC where he established a successful Psychiatric practice and became a long-serving Professor at the George Washington University. Under the democratic government of Romania, Dr. Sorel's Romanian citizenship was restored in a ceremony at the Romanian Embassy in Washington DC.

A thoughtful, intentional, original servant-leader, Dr. Sorel deeply treasured his family, friends, work, soccer, photography, and a life of the mind lived through the creation, refinement, and exchange of ideas with others. For years, Dr. Sorel would spend weekend mornings on the phone for hours with family, friends and colleagues worldwide in the languages he spoke (English, French, Romanian, some Yiddish and Hebrew). He made time to coach his son's soccer team for five years, across nearly 10 seasons, relishing the post-match debriefs with his son on the drive home. He did not hesitate to change transcontinental business travel plans to arrive in time for his daughter's ballet recital. He declined professional advancement opportunities that would have required his family to move so that his children could stay close to the friends they had made in the DC area. He frequently embarrassed his children at soccer matches attended at RFK Stadium, where he would regale the home team with cries of "danger!" when the opposition brought the ball into the final third of the field. Whether stopping to photograph meadow flowers or the moment when a butterfly rests on an apple blossom, Dr. Sorel deeply appreciated natural beauty. A political independent who would proudly remind others that he voted for the best candidate regardless of party, Dr. Sorel would engage passionately on any topic, at any time, with anyone. He would regularly and genuinely press the taxi driver in whichever country he was visiting for their take on local politics, and report back to his family on what he learned. He deeply believed in the power of democracy, and of the United States to be a force for good in the world. A belief he lived through his tour in the U.S. public health service, and his work to deepen ties between the United States and Europe, NATO, and, in particular, Romania, including through his behind the scenes work to arrange for Romania to be a featured country at the 1999 Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Dr. Sorel was an innovative global health leader, health systems performance expert, practicing physician, and Clinical Professor of Global Health, Health Policy and Management at the George Washington University, where he was also a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Sorel served as a subject matter expert for the World Health Organization (WHO), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH Fogarty International Center), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), World Bank Group (WBG), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), and the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD). He was founding editor in chief of the Global Mental Health and Psychiatry Review and a cofounder of the Africa Global Mental Health Institute. At the George Washington University, Dr. Sorel taught Global Mental Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health. He was an active and respected member of the American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Psychiatry; President of the World Association for Social Psychiatry; active member of the World Psychiatric Association; President of both the Washington Psychiatric Society and the Medical Society for the District of Columbia, and inventor of the TOTAL Health model: an integrated, collaborative template for health care that combined the capabilities of primary care, mental health & public health. Dr. Sorel was the organizer and President of the 1st International Perinatal TOTAL Health Congress.

His honors and initiatives were diverse and extensive. They include the RI Centennial Award from Rehabilitation International (RI) in 2023; the Ronald A. Shellow Award from the American Psychiatric Association in the spring of 2021; recognition as a Pioneer and Leader in Public Health from The George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health honored in December 2019; the Mental Health Champion Award, awarded at the Universal Health and Mental Health for All Conference in Malta, E.U., in December, 2018; the Excellence Prize, from the Government of Romania at the Romanian Embassy, in Washington in 2018;  Doctor Honoris Causa from Carol Davila Medical University and the Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania, awarded in October 2009 and June 2014, respectively; Star of Romania, Order of Commander, awarded by The President of Romania in Bucharest in January 2004; a commendation from the United States Congress for initiating and chairing Resilience in the Face of Terror: Healing the Trauma of 9/11 in the autumn of 2002. Dr. Sorel organized countless panel discussions on events integrating cultural and practical perspectives. Whether arranging to have a West African drumming troupe perform at the Cosmos Club or curating a publication and panel to celebrate the Marshall Plan, Dr. Sorel was most at home when making often overlooked but no less critical connections between people and cultures to unlock new insights, relationships, and impact.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, please make donations to Hebrew International Aid Society ( HIAS ), which helped Dr. Sorel during his stateless years in Paris, or National Alliance on Mental Illness ( NAMI ). Services for Dr. Sorel will be held Wednesday, October 16th, 10 am, at Congregation Har Shalom, 11510 Falls Rd, Potomac, MD 20854.