Fellows

Hi, everyone! My name is Kamal Al-Shalby, and I was born and raised in the wonderful city of Ann Arbor, MI. My undergrad degree was in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Michigan. Go blue! After graduating, I spent a year working with refugees and immigrants across the Metro Detroit area through AmeriCorps. I fell in love with Detroit and decided to stay for medical school at Wayne State University. Then, I hopped over Lake Michigan to Milwaukee, where I completed my general psychiatry residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin and happily ate my weight in cheese curds. During residency, I moonlighted in emergency psychiatry where I got to work closely with youth and their families. My experiences with young people in crises strongly pulled me towards a career in child and adolescent psychiatry. My professional interests also include racial/ethnic, gender, and sexual minority mental health, psychotherapy and psychodynamic theory. When I’m not working, I enjoy exploring nature, traveling, playing the piano and ukulele, working with oil pastels and Palestinian embroidery. As a proud son of Palestinian immigrants, I have looked forward to moving to a city that embraces its rich immigrant history and residents. I also can’t wait to indulge my inner foodie at local restaurants, visit the parks and museums, hang out with my co-fellows, and explore the rest of New England on my weekends off.

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Hello! My name is Jackie and I am originally from Austin, Texas. I moved to Cambridge, MA to go to Harvard College and little did I know I would be returning to the area for both residency and fellowship! After college I moved to New York City and did some psychiatry research in Alzheimer’s and suicide and attended medical school at Columbia. I met my wife in New York and we moved back to the Boston area with our cat, Mr. Bumble, when I started psychiatry residency at Cambridge Health Alliance. I have loved the opportunity to get a lot of exposure to child and adolescent psychiatry in residency and I am thrilled to be staying at CHA for child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship!

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Hi there! My name is Ana Claudia. I was born and raised in the midwest of Brazil, in a city called Cuiaba. I studied medicine at the Universidade Federal de Rondonia, located in the Amazon region, and completed my psychiatry residency at Rutgers NJMS. I entered medical school with a desire to change the reality of people who were usually unseen, neglected by society and frequently by their own families. At the beginning of my medical course, I joined my state psychiatry league and started volunteering at a local orphanage. The fear in the children's eyes was very real, but hope and trust was still there, like an undying flame. I learned more about compassion and resilience during those months than I had ever learned before. Such experiences gave me the basis I needed to start transforming desire into action. By that point, I already knew I wanted to be a psychiatrist, and the certainty that I wanted to be a child and adolescent psychiatrist became stronger. I knew that despite not being able to change their past, I could help those children to have a much brighter future.

However, I haven't walked this journey alone. My loving family and husband have always been my fortress and my greatest support, and I am thankful to have them in my life. There is nothing better than enjoying a good chimarrão with them on a rainy day. Well, perhaps skydiving, watching the sunset, and listening to the sound of the ocean might get close to it!

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Hello everyone! My name is Tim and I'm originally from Branford, CT. After graduating from Boston College with a degree in psychology, I worked as a high school math teacher at a public school in Baltimore City via Teach for America. My teaching experience showed me first hand the profound impacts of trauma and social injustice. After three years in the classroom, I returned to medical school at Weill Cornell in New York City, knowing that I hoped to continue working with young people. I completed my residency at MGH/McLean, where I served as the McLean Administrative chief resident, and the Public and Community Psychiatry co-chief resident. At MGH/McLean I pursued academic interests in racial inequity within psychiatry, and taught about structural competency and community psychiatry. I'm also a Public Psychiatry Fellow within the APA and am interested in physician advocacy. I'm excited to continue to work in these areas as I move into Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and also about the prospect of returning to schools! My wife Anna and I are thrilled to be staying in the Boston area, and I'm very excited to be joining the team at CHA.

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Hi everyone! My name is Golda and my family immigrated from Kazakhstan. I grew up in Ohio and Florida, but ventured away for medical school at U Chicago. While there, I traveled to Almaty and Moscow to work with NGOs on the intersection of HIV, harm reduction, and access to mental health resources. This experience fundamentally shaped my decision to apply to psychiatry. Since matching at Brown for residency, I’ve realized an interest in psychodynamic therapy and I hope to work with individuals, families and groups, from an interpersonal perspective in the future. I’d also like to delve into the intersection of community-level interventions, forensic psychiatry, and advocacy for immigrant populations and youth involved in the juvenile justice system. In my free time, I enjoy exploring new bookstores, finding inspiration from art exhibits, and trying new restaurants. I’m excited about training at CHA!

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Hi, everyone! I am Alex, and I was born and raised in south central PA. I studied neuroscience at Franklin & Marshall College and worked as both an EMT and health insurance agent prior to my medical studies at Drexel University College of Medicine. After medical school, I completed my psychiatry residency at the Cambridge Health Alliance, where I served as a psychotherapy chief resident. Professionally, I am interested in psychotherapy for individuals and families, medical education, and community and school-based health. In my spare time, I am a musician (guitar, flute, also bass and vocals) and enjoy taking ballroom dance lessons.

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It’s wonderful to be here! My name is Isabella and I am originally from Uniontown, a small town in Northeast Ohio. My undergraduate degree is in biology with minor specializations in chemistry, music, and Spanish at The University of Akron. During my time there, I founded a student organization, DreamAKRON, to address discrepancies in education access for students, especially those who are underrepresented and minoritized. I was accepted to medical school at The University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, as a junior in college via their MedStart program. When not studying, I enjoyed volunteering to provide free medical care in my community and abroad to the people who had limited access to quality care. After spending the first 25 years of my life in Ohio, my husband and I thought it would be valuable for my growth as a physician and a person to train in a new region of the United States. 

We were so excited when I matched at The University of Florida (UF) for adult psychiatry residency. “The Swamp” proved to be an excellent place to train and provided me with quality exposure to child and adolescent psychiatry through consults, inpatient, and outpatient. I fell in love with therapy, whether it was in brief CBT interventions during a medication management appointment or psychodynamic therapy. In the PGY-2 and -3 years, I participated in an elective where I had the opportunity to co-lead a process group for college students. After these rich experiences, I felt ready to further my education and pursue Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship. I was drawn to Cambridge Health Alliance’s strong focus on community-oriented healthcare, strong therapy training, and the bio-psycho-socio-cultural approach in evidence based patient care. My professional areas of interest are in therapy modalities (play, DBT, group, and family), collaborative and school-based care models, and mood, anxiety, and attentional disorders. My husband is a music composer and we are so excited to get involved in the Boston music scene. In my spare time, I love to immerse myself in art and history at museums, go to the gym, and bake delicious desserts! 

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Hi! I'm Jess and grew up in New Jersey. I went to college at Tufts where I majored in Child Development. After, I spent 2 years doing clinical research at Massachusetts General Hospital      then went to medical school at Rowan University in New Jersey. I then completed psychiatry residency at Boston Medical Center where I was able to work with and learn how to best treat diverse individuals of all socioeconomic backgrounds in a culturally sensitive manner. I have an interest in all forms of therapy as well as working with individuals with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. When I'm not at work, I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching reality TV, working out, going to the beach, or doing anything outdoors especially in the summertime. I'm thrilled to be staying in the Boston area and be part of the CHA team!

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Hi everyone! I’m Linda, and I’m originally from the Chicago suburbs. I studied psychology and neurobiology at UC Berkeley, and while there I began volunteering on a crisis hotline, which had a profound impact on my career trajectory. I remained in the Bay Area for several years, continuing to help on the hotline while working in research at UCSF and the San Francisco VA Hospital. I completed my MD/MPH at Tulane University, where I enjoyed learning about medicine from both the individual and population levels concurrently while volunteering in spaces that emphasized the importance of social determinants of health. I moved back to Chicago for my residency at Rush University. There, I was able to explore electives in trauma therapy, clinical research, and assertive community treatment and served as an APA Public Psychiatry Fellow. Beyond my medical career, I am a huge nature lover, enjoying both exploring outside on hikes and cultivating a home forest with my many houseplants, terrariums, and two cats. I am thrilled to have moved to my last remaining US coast to train at CHA!

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Hi everyone! My name is Victoria and I am from Portland, Oregon. I attended Dartmouth College for undergraduate, where I studied anthropology, biology, and international studies. Prior to medical school, I spent two years working with the Ministry of Health in South Africa and with Partners in Health in Peru with underserved communities living with diseases like HIV and tuberculosis. I saw daily how social determinants of health impacted people’s lived experiences of illness, wellness, and engagement with the healthcare system. I then returned back home to Portland to attend medical school at Oregon Health and Science University. There, I saw first-hand how anthropology and medicine can come together through the field of psychiatry, and fell in love with child psychiatry in particular for its social justice mindset. I was excited to head back to New Hampshire for residency at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, which really cemented my desire to intervene early through child and adolescent psychiatry. I am delighted to join the Cambridge Health Alliance family! My professional interests include the sequelae of trauma, immigrant/refugee mental health, community mental health, and therapy. When I’m not working, you may find me baking bread, knitting, reading (especially Tolkien!), traveling, playing my violin, and tending my houseplants. I can’t wait to explore the restaurants, museums, and culture of Cambridge and beyond with my co-fellows!

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