Dan has worked as consultant and trainer for numerous companies, including KPMG Peat Marwick, Dow, Ernst and Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Andersen Consulting, McKesson, Pacific Bell, Roche, Bank of America, Cadence, McCombs School of Business at UT, Remax, Tax Executives Institute, MGM Mirage, TORK/SCA, Clarke Mosquito Control, Sprouse Shrader Smith PLLC, Charles Schwab, FleishmanHillard, Cisco, and five different Cirque du Soleil productions.

Dan has taught at Duke, Pepperdine, UCLA Extension, and the Writing-by-the-Sea program at UCSB. He was an adjunct professor for USC’s BFA program, the MBA Program for the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, the Applied Improvisation Network World Conference in Southern California, the Global Improv Initiative at the University of Irvine in 2017, and at Middlesex University, London, 2019.

He co-created with Stephen Kearin, The Living Story Board for Dreamworks and Disney Animation, which is a unique, real-time writing and improvisation method of writers and animators working together to explore narrative.

He has written and directed industrial films for Stanford Health and SCA/TORK.

Dr. Katzman’s lifelong work has been to help patients overcome the isolation that informs so many modern lives. He studied human relationships at Stanford University as an undergraduate, and went on to medical school at UC San Diego before completing psychiatry residency training at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. Dr. Katzman’s study of contemporary psychodynamic theory has included certification in the Adult Attachment Interview, the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis Psychotherapy program, Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy and Mentalization Based Therapy.

Dr. Katzman has extensive experience in hospital administration. He served as the Chief of Psychiatry and Director of the Behavioral Health Care line at the New Mexico VA Healthcare System for many years. He is currently the Vice Chair for Education for the Department of Psychiatry at the University of New Mexico and served as the Vice Chair of Clinical Services for many years prior. He currently serves as the medical director of a First Responder Resiliency program through Project ECHO. He is transitioning to Connecticut to be close to growing children, and is now the Director of Education at Silver Hill Hospital.

Dr. Katzman also has a longstanding interest in communication. Much of this comes from his thirty-year background in improvisational theater. He has worked with psychiatry residents and medical students using improvisation to develop the capacity for collaboration and spontaneity so important to the therapeutic alliance. He has worked with interdisciplinary groups of providers in various hospital settings and with medical leadership teams to foster a sense of teamwork and joy in working together.

In addition to his scholarly, peer-reviewed research, Dr. Katzman has also published two popular works. His study and love for improvisation is captured in his books, Life Unscripted and Ensemble, co-authored with his improvisation mentor Dan O’Connor. His 2012 novel, The Storymaker, was recognized as a Semi-Finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel competition of 10,00 submissions.