Leadership

As Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Dr. Gray is dedicated to accelerating growth, collaboration, and impact across the tripartite missions of patient care, education, and research. Nationally, he serves in senior leadership roles with the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Within MUSC, his leadership has spanned division, department, college, and university roles. Complementing his work as an active clinician, educator, and mentor, Dr. Gray’s highly collaborative and productive program of clinical research—continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health throughout his career—is focused on understanding and addressing youth substance use and mental health. This work has yielded national and international acclaim, reinforcing MUSC’s strong standing on the world stage.

Dr. Gray grew up in South Carolina and obtained his bachelor of science degree in chemical engineering at Clemson University and his medical degree at MUSC. He completed psychiatry residency and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at MUSC. A proud product of South Carolina public schools, Dr. Gray is passionate about “paying forward” opportunities to develop careers, provide outstanding care, and advance health statewide and beyond.

Vice Chair, Finance and Business Administration 

Lalith K. Solai, M.D., is Vice Chair of Clinical Services for Geriatric Psychiatry at MUSC and serves as Chief of Mental Health Integrated Center of Clinical Excellence (ICCE) for MUSC Health. 

Dr. Solai is from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He served as the Professor of Psychiatry and the Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry. While there, he also served as Medical Director of Patient Safety at the UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital (WPH). In addition, he was the medical director of the Center for Interventional Psychiatry (CIP), overseeing care for patients with severe, difficult-to-treat depression and other debilitating psychiatric disorders. Under Dr. Solai's leadership, the CIP maintained a national reputation as a top provider of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), widely considered the gold-standard treatment for severe depression. Dr. Solai also substantially expanded the range of therapies provided by the CIP, including transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and ketamine.

As chief of geriatric psychiatry, Dr. Solai led WPH's Geriatric Psychiatry Services (the largest geriatric psychiatric psychiatry division in the country), including the Geriatric Psychiatry Inpatient Unit, the Long-Term Care program, the Bellefield Enhanced Support Team (BEST) program, the Benedum Geriatric Center and UPMC Senior Care-Shadyside. He also supervised clinical services to more than 15 local/regional long-term care centers. His passion for clinical services lies within mental health services for nursing home patients. He created and managed a 30-bed nursing home unit that serves only primary behavioral health patients.

Dr. Solai is a dedicated and accomplished educator who has taught extensively at all levels, particularly in resident and fellow training at WPH. He organized and ran the regional annual conference on Behavioral Health and Aging for more than ten years. He was the director of the geriatric psychiatry fellowship, a training program with a national reputation for clinical and educational excellence in late-life mental health.

Dr. Thomas Lewis is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). He also completed his medical school and residency training in general psychiatry at MUSC. He then went on to complete an addiction psychiatry fellowship and a forensic psychiatry fellowship.

In his current role, Dr. Lewis is the attending physician on the addictions inpatient unit at the MUSC Institute of Psychiatry. He also serves as the forensic psychiatry fellowship director. Dr. Lewis has been recognized as an expert witness in forensic psychiatry by the South Carolina court of general sessions. He also conducts forensic evaluations and has provided psychiatric treatment to inmates within the South Carolina Department of Corrections.

Dr. Lewis is involved in organizational psychiatry. He is a South Carolina American Psychiatric Association Assembly representative and a national membership committee member. Dr. Lewis has also served as President of the South Carolina Psychiatric Association, the only state-wide association for psychiatric physicians in South Carolina, representing over 400 members.

Director, Community and Public Safety Psychiatry Division

Medical Director, Psychiatry Hospitalist Division, Mental Health Integrated Center of Clinical Excellence (ICCE)