Irene Jakab (Hungarian: Jakab Irén;[1] July 15, 1919 – June 18, 2011) was a psychiatrist and humanist who was a member of the Harvard University School of Medicine faculty prior to designing and directing "the John Merck program for mentally retarded emotionally disturbed children at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic (WPIC)" at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1974 to 1982.

[3][4][5][6][7] Still classified, at the time of her death in 2011, as a Harvard lecturer in psychiatry and an honorary staff psychiatrist at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts,[8][9][4] Jakab was also known for her advocacy of the use of art therapy to improve the quality of life of individuals with learning disabilities or mental illness.

[4] As an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard and an associate psychiatrist at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts during the mid-1970s, Jakab was a frequent featured speaker at conferences and symposia across the United States.

In June 1968, she directed a three-day, art therapy professional development workshop for staff at the University of Hawaiʻi’s Counseling and Testing Center.

"[4] In 1977, she analyzed artwork created by Jack Ruby, the man who murdered Lee Harvey Oswald, the 1963 assassin of United States President John F. Kennedy.

"Appointed as the director of the University of Pittsburgh's medical student education programs in child psychiatry in 1982, she continued to serve in that capacity until 1989, when she was named professor emerita.

[17][18][4] During the resolution of Jakab's estate, a bequest was made to the University of Pittsburgh "to support a lecture by a pioneer in research focusing on developmental disorders."

"[20] Nim Tottenham, PhD, an associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and developmental affective neuroscientist who was investigating mature human emotion regulation, was chosen to be the speaker for the Irene Jakab Memorial Lecture, which took place on April 28, 2017.