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Faculty

Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship

Clinical and Research Leaders

The field of child and adolescent psychiatry has seen tremendous growth recently in areas of epidemiology, diagnosis, neurobiology, treatment and health services research. The Department of Psychiatry at CHA is particularly committed to advancing the scientific knowledge base regarding the mental health of children living in culturally and socioeconomically diverse community settings, and in training mental health professionals in clinical excellence, research investigation and academic writing for the promotion of this knowledge.

CHA is a health care system with strong clinical, academic and research programs and diverse faculty interests. The training program and the faculty are committed to providing top educational opportunities for Fellows at CHA and at affiliated Harvard teaching hospitals.

  • Nicholas Carson, MD, FRCPC

    Nicholas Carson, MD, FRCPCAssistant Professor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
    Division Chief, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

    Research Scientist, Health Equity Research Lab

    Dr. Carson is a graduate of the child psychiatry fellowship at Cambridge Health Alliance and completed residency training in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania in the Clinical Research Scholars Program. His research in mental health services for multicultural communities has explored the quality and social determinants of mental health outcomes across children and adults using electronic health records and national survey data. He was a co-investigator on several NIMH, AHRQ, and PCORI-funded grants on topics of patient provider communication, mechanisms of health care disparities, and shared decision making. Currently, Dr. Carson is focused on suicide prevention research using innovative big data approaches among disadvantaged youth. Dr. Carson leads the Clinical Scholarship seminar for second-year fellows and is a Team Leader on the Friday Evaluation Team.

    He was the Associate Training Director of the Child Psychiatry Fellowship Program from July 2013-June 2016 before assuming the role of Medical Director for the Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry Services in July of 2016 and then Director of Outpatient in 2018. In May 2022 he was appointed Division Chief of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.

  • Benjamin Lê Cook, PhD, MPH

    Benjamin Lê Cook, PhD, MPHProfessor, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
    Director, Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research and Health Equity Research Lab

    Dr. Cook holds a PhD in Health Policy from Harvard University and is a health services researcher
    focused on reducing and understanding underlying mechanisms of racial/ethnic disparities in health
    and mental health care. He has been principal investigator on several major R01 grants from the
    NIMH and AHRQ investigating mechanisms underlying disparities in episodes of mental health care,
    a R01 Supplement developing state by state report cards on mental health care disparities and a
    Milton Foundation grant supporting research on tobacco use and mental health. His methodological
    work focuses on improving statistical methods for the measurement and tracking of healthcare
    disparities, and he has received awards from NIMH and AcademyHealth for this work. His other
    research interests include improving mental health of immigrant populations, comparative
    effectiveness research and its influence on healthcare disparities, substance abuse treatment
    disparities and healthcare equity. Dr. Cook and his team teach the first-year fellows about health
    disparity research and provide mentorship on research methods and analysis to fellows and faculty
    interested in pursuing quantitative research studies.

  • Sandra M. DeJong, MD, MSc

    Sandra M. DeJong, MD, MScAssociate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
    Senior Consultant to the Training Program, Division of Child and Adolescent
    Psychiatry

    Dr. DeJong trained in General Psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, MA, and in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Massachusetts General and McLean Hospitals. She served as co-Investigator with Dr. Jean Frazier on an NIMH-funded multi-site research project in the treatment of early-onset psychosis, and has written about the use of antipsychotic medications in children. In the fall of 2004, Dr. DeJong assumed the position of Associate Training Director in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and was Training Director from 2013-2017. Current academic interests include telepsychiatry, training on the treatment of substance use disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, e-professionalism and integrating technology into clinical practice, ethics in child psychiatry, and psychiatric education. She is the author of Blogs and Tweets, Texting and Friending: Social Media and the Internet in Health Care published by Elsevier in 2014. She serves on the Steering Committee and the Executive Council of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatry Training (AADPRT), and is a past-president of AADPRT. She currently also serves on the Ethics Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She participates on the ACGME Subspecialty Milestones Taskforce to develop Milestones for Child/Adolescent Psychiatry,as Editor of the Child Psychiatry Resident In-Training Examination (PRITE), on the Board of Directors for the American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology (ABPN), and recent past Secretary for the American Psychiatric Association (APA). She stepped into her current role as senior consultant to the training program in July 2018.

  • Xenia Johnson-Bhembe, MD

    Xenia Johnson-Bhembe, MDAssistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
    Director of Community Minority Affairs

    Dr. Johnson-Bhembe completed a General Psychiatry residency at the Medical University of South
    Carolina and her child training at The Cambridge Hospital. Upon completing her child training in 2000, she worked as a staff psychiatrist on the Child Assessment Unit. Dr. Johnson-Bhembe was the Associate Director of Training for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program until 2004. She has worked as a community child psychiatrist for underserved populations in Massachusetts for her entire career, and worked as a consultant to the Cambridge and Malden Public School systems. She is the the Director of Community Minority Affairs at CHA. Dr. Johnson-Bhembe’s interests led her to create a biracial girls group focusing on the challenges facing teenage girls around identity formation. Her other interests include consulting to community organizations and exploring the issues around diagnosing children with both medical and psychiatric disorders.

  • Karlen Lyons-Ruth, PhD

    Karlen Lyons-Ruth, PhDProfessor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School

    Dr. Lyons-Ruth’s work has focused on the assessment of attachment relationships in high-risk environments over the infancy, childhood, and adolescent periods and has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Borderline Foundation, the Mailman Foundation, and the Commonwealth Fund. Several attachment-focused assessments developed in her lab are now being disseminated internationally, including the AMBIANCE scales for atypical parent-infant interaction.

    She is the author of more than 90 research articles and book chapters on infant development, maternal depression, the early attachment relationship, and, more recently, the interplay between genetic and environmental factors in young adult psychopathology. Under current NIH funding, her group is developing tools for assessing attachment relationships at risk in adolescence and evaluating their interplay with traumatic experiences and genetic factors in contributing to young adult depression, suicidality, and borderline psychopathology. In collaboration with McLean neuroscientists Diego Pizzagalli and Martin Teicher, studies are also assessing the effects of early adversity on neurobiological structure and function in young adulthood.

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  • Nancy Rappaport, MD

    Nancy Rappaport, MDAssociate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

    Nancy Rappaport, MD completed her General Psychiatry Training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and her Child & Adolescent training at the Cambridge Hospital. Her particular passion is training child psychiatrists to provide support to students and teachers. Particular research interests are in community based participatory research (with schools), understanding and providing safety assessments of aggressive students, refining CBT for traumatized adolescents and writing creatively (having published a memoir, In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother’s Suicide, in September 2009). Her most recent book is The Behavior Code – A Practice Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students, written with Jessica Minahan, M.Ed, BCBA. Dr. Rappaport received the prestigious Art of Healing award from the Cambridge Health Alliance Foundation in 2013. She was the long-time Director of School-based Mental Health Programs, and continues to teach the fellows in school-based child mental health work.

  • Debra S. Rosenblum, MD

    Debra S. Rosenblum, MDAssistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

    Debra S. Rosenblum, MD completed her General Psychiatry training and her Child and Adolescent Fellowship at the Cambridge Health Alliance. She served as the Medical Director of the Outpatient Department in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and continues to precept the Second Year Fellows Psychopharmacology Clinic. She is the Director of the Developmentally and Neurologically Atypical Adults (DANAA) Clinic, a clinical, consultation, and teaching service providing care for adults with intellectual disabilities. She has extensive expertise in outpatient psychopharmacology management and a particular interest in children's relationship to popular culture and has published on this topic. She has also served on the Media Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

  • Margaret Weiss, MD, PhD

    Margaret Weiss, MD, PhDAssociate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
    Director of Neurodevelopmental Services

    Dr. Weiss joined the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division in 2019 as Director of Clinical Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Before coming to CHA, she was Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arkansas and the Director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division. Dr. Weiss has extensive research experience and has been awarded several grants. She has published over 100 articles, co-authored four books and five chapters. Dr. Weiss is bringing her extensive experience to continue her research focusing on ADHD symptoms in complex trauma, and the metabolic effects of antipsychotic medications. She has received numerous teaching awards. Dr. Weiss assumed the role Director of the Neurodevelopmental Disorders Program in March of 2023. In this role, she serves as a content expert and an operations advisor to services across the care continuum and across the lifespan. She supervises the ambulatory neurodevelopmental team,and collaborates with community agencies and services, research partners, state agencies, and national/international partners.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Teaching Faculty

Elizabeth Abbate, PsyD
Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: attachment, family systems/dynamics, solution-focused approaches, animal assisted therapy, expressive arts-based interventions

Azeesat Babajide, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Mood and anxiety disorders, systems of care, trauma, transitional age youth.

Ayelet Barkai, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Adolescent development, gender identity and sexuality development, attachment, psychoanalysis.

James Barrett, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Juvenile justice, police and mental health, at risk boys and violence prevention.

Jacqueline Buchanan, MD

Shireen Cama, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Integrated Care, Social Determinants of Health, Infant-Parent Mental Health, Cultural Psychiatry, Graduate Medical Education

Nicholas Carson, MD, FRCPC
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Mental health service disparities, shared decision-making, clinical scholarship during training, treatment quality, youth engagement with media and technology.

Peter Chubinsky, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Integrating psychopharmacological and psychotherapy treatments in children and adolescents, psychoanalytic psychotherapy of children and adolescents, psychotherapeutic implications of infancy research.

Don Condie, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Areas of interest: medical director roles, risk management, quality improvement.

Benjamin Lê Cook, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Statistical methods for the measurement and tracking of healthcare disparities.

Kevin Coughlin, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Medical Director, Neurodevelopmental Inpatient Unit
Academic Interests: infant-parent mental health, autism, early psychosis, integrated care

Fredrick Crow, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director of Intensive Services in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Academic Interests: inpatient psychiatry, psychosis, psychotherapy

Swathi Damodaran, MD
Academic Interests: Early relational health, medical education, sociocultural psychiatry, and family therapy

Peter Daniolos, MD
Member of Faculty, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Gender and Sexuality, ASD, OCD and tic disorders, psychotherapy and teaching/medical education

Sandra M. DeJong, MD, MSc
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Early onset psychosis, e-professionalism digital ethics, psychiatric education.

Tarshe Derival, LMHC

Ann R. Epstein, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Psychoanalysis, Psychotherapy, Infant Development, Parent-Infant Psychotherapy.

Veronica Faller, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry-Part Time
Academic Interests: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Cultural Psychiatry, Medical Education, Emergency Psychiatry, and Residential Level of Care

Lois Flaherty, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests:: community child psychiatry, adolescence, and clinical scholarship.

John Fantegrossi, MSN, FNP

Stephanie Fosbenner, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: trauma-based disorders and trauma-informed care; public psychiatric systems of care; integrated models of care; family therapy; and severe mental illness.

Devin Gibbs, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry
Academic Interests: Psychotherapy, mood and anxiety disorders, and trauma

Joel Goldstein, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Inpatient care patterns and improvements for children and adolescents, community and family-based interventions in child and adolescent psychiatry, fire setting behaviors in children and adolescents, Systems of Care in Children's Mental Health Services

Kaitlin Green, LICSW

Len Greenberg, PhD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Family Therapy

Sanjay Gulati, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Clinical work with deaf children, adolescents, and families conducted in American Sign Language, teaching, the effects of late language exposure on the behavior of deaf children.

Emily Hall, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: psychotherapy, psychiatric care during medical illness, OCD, ADHD, and developmental trauma.

John Hamilton, MD, MSc
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Evidence based psychiatry, practice parameters, prevention, psychiatric research and quality improvement in HMO settings.

Jill Elka Harkaway, EdD
Assistant Professor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Family therapy, couples therapy, systems consultation.

Jennifer Harris, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: College mental health, parent guidance, psychodynamic therapy, and mood dysregulation in children.

Alexandra Harrison, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Evaluation and treatment of young children and their families, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, theory of therapeutic action, videotape microanalysis for use in research, clinical work, and teaching.

Ann Hess, MD, PhD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic interest: Interface with parents during child/adolescent psychotherapy.

Albert Hyman, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Teaching/supervision

Gabriela Iagaru, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Trauma, Inpatient Psychiatry

Xenia Johnson-Bhembe, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Public health psychiatry, school and system consultations, disparities of care in pediatric psychiatry.

Neal Kass, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Integration of therapeutics - neuropsychiatric, family, psychodynamic, psychoanalytic.

Kathy Kelts, LICSW
Early Intervention Group Leader and Coordinator, Riverside Community Care.

Dorothy Kelleher, PsyD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Directory of Family Therapy Training
Academic Interests: Family therapy, CBT, Community Psychiatry, School-based psychiatry

Deborah Kulick, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School.
Academic Interests: Outpatient consultation-liaison, domestic violence, homelessness, school-based treatment.

Karen Levine, PhD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Diagnosis, emotional development and behavioral challenges of children with Developmental Disabilities, school consultation regarding children with Developmental Disabilities and/or autism related issues.

Karlen Lyons-Ruth, PhD
Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Trauma and social stressors on parent-child relationships over time and the effects of attachment-oriented parenting supports in therapeutic interventions.

Renee Marchant, PsyD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests:Psychological and Neuropsychological Evaluation, family therapy, neurodiversity, trauma/resilience, gender diversity, inpatient mental health

Lauren Marchette, PhD
Instructor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Cognitive behavioral therapy, psychotherapy research.

Kim Martin, LICSW
Assistant VP, Child and Family Services
Riverside Community Care

Sharmila Mehta, PsyD
Instructor in Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Inpatient psychology, youth and school threat assessment, youth violence, milieu and group programming in acute settings

Cynthia Mittelmeier, PhD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Coordinator of Family Therapy Curriculum
Academic Interests: family therapy, goal-directed, evidence-based therapies

Theodore Murray, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: psychodynamic psychotherapy, acute psychiatry, teaching

Ann Neumeyer, MD
Associate Professor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: pediatric neurology, developmental disorders

Miriam Ornstein, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: psychodynamic psychotherapy, consultation to state agencies

Louis Ostrowsky, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: psychotherapy, college mental health, community psychiatry

Mathilde Pelaprat, PsyD
Teaching Associate, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Forensic psychiatry

Analise Peleggi, MD
Academic Interests: Integrated and collaborative mental health care, quality and safety in medicine, and medical education

Adele Pressman, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: psychodynamic and group psychotherapy, Psychiatry in Media

Malak Rafla, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Asylum Evaluations, Community Psychiatry, Infant-Parent Mental Health, Preschool Consultation

Nancy Rappaport, MD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: School consultations and school-based work

Eleanor Richards, PhD
Instructor on Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Interests: school-based mental health, juvenile justice, risk-immersed adolescents

Debra Rosenblum, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Intellectual disabilities, community psychiatry

Courtney Rotolo, LICSW
Teaching Associate, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: behavioral therapies, trauma

Sarah Samuelson, PsyD
Research Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: behavioral therapies

Dan Sanford, PsyD
Clinical Director, Adolescent Consultation Services

A. John Sargent, MD
Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Vice Chair, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
Academic Interests: C/L Psychiatry, Family Therapy

Maria Sauzier, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-Time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Trauma, resilience, recovery

Kemper Schumacher, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: community psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, ADHD

Priya Sehgal, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Cultural Psychiatry, Community Psychiatry, School Consultation

Susannah Sherry, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Development, Psychotherapy

Joseph Shrand, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Addictions psychiatry, strengths-based treatment

Lyn E. Styczynski, PhD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Family Therapy.

Nandini Talwar, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Consultation to State Agencies.

Cynthia J. Telingator, MD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Gender and sexuality, alternative and contemporary families, preventive community care, trauma, and psychiatric training and education.

Stephanie Tournet, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Psychoanalysis, integrative/holistic psychiatry.

Judy Tsafrir, MD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Psychoanalysis, integrative/holistic psychiatry.

John Wechter, EdD
Teaching Associate in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Psychotherapy of children and adolescents.

Margaret Weiss, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Director of Clinical Research in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Division of Child/Adolescent Psychiatry
Academic Interests: ADHD, Trauma, Autism, Clinical Research

Kerry-Ann Williams, MD
Lecturer on Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Community psychiatry, trauma, CBT, Residential Treatment.

Tyrone Williams, MD
Lecturer in Psychiatry, Part-time, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: outpatient psychiatry

Scott Yapo, MD
Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Academic Interests: Psychotherapy, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Emergency Psychiatry, and Medical Education

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