Dr. Maris was originally trained as a behavioral scientist.  His Ph.D. in social-psychology / sociology at the University of Illinois focused on an epidemiological investigation of 2, 153 Chicago suicides.  After teaching for two years at Dartmouth College, Maris went on to receive 5 years of post-graduate training in psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore and had an additional 5 post-doctoral fellowships in psychiatry (for a total of 10 years of psychiatric education).

In 1968-69, Dr. Maris was an NIMH post-doctoral fellow in psychiatry/suicidology at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine (JHSM).  From 1969-1973, Maris was an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at JHSM, Director of its M.D.-Ph.D. training program in behavioral sciences, a Deputy Medical Examiner in Baltimore, and co-administrator of the NIMH suicidology training grant at Hopkins.

While at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Maris did both psychotherapy with suicidal patients and basic suicide research, as a member of in-patient treatment teams, in the outpatient clinics and the ER.  Maris also had clinical training at the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center (1968-69), and was a World Health Organization Fellow in psychiatry in West Berlin (1971).  Dr. Maris received over $2 million in basic federal suicide research and training grants from 1968 to 1973 (from the NIMH, NSF, National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the Grant Foundation of NYC).

From 1973 to 2001, Dr. Maris has been a Full Professor and Chair of Sociology (1973-84), Professor of Family Medicine, and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of South Carolina.  Maris has been continually appointed in medical schools from 1968 to the present; where he teaches and supervises residents, medical students and pre-medical students.  In 1979-80, Dr. Maris was a Yale Foundations Fund Fellow in psychiatry at the medical school in Vienna, Austria (where he studied with Dr. Erwin Ringel).

From 1980-81, Dr. Maris was the national President of the American Association of Suicidology.  In 1981, he received the Russell Research Award for his research monograph, Pathways to Suicide.  From 1981 to 1996, Maris was the Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal, Suicide and Life-threatening Behavior.

From 1985-2001, Dr. Maris founded and directed the University of South Carolina Center for the Study of Suicide (an official SC State agency).  From 1993-present, Maris has served on the scientific advisory committee of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in NYC.  From 1996-99, Dr. Maris was the Editor of the Review of Suicidology.

In 1986, Maris was awarded the Killam Fellowship in psychiatry at the University of Calgary Medical School (Alberta, Canada).  He was made a Fellow (1990) in the International Association for Suicide Research, a Fellow in the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (1994), and a board-certified Forensic Examiner (1996).

Dr. Maris is primary author or editor of two important suicide books.  In 1992, Assessment and Prediction of Suicide was published, and in 2000, the Comprehensive Textbook of Suicidology.

Maris's current work focuses on education, treatment, publication and consulting in forensic suicidology.  He continues to teach part-time in Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the University of South Carolina Medical School, as well as teach some undergraduate honors suicide and psychiatry courses.