I am a licensed clinical psychologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, working in adult inpatient care within the Center for Behavioral Health & Learning. I bring specialized training in serious mental illness, inpatient psychiatric care, serving populations with comorbid substance use and/or medical complexity, and enjoy working collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams to optimize patient-centered care. I also bring a global public health background in improving service delivery and access in low-resource settings across Africa and Asia.
I graduated with a PsyD in clinical psychology from the University of Denver, after completing my pre-doctoral internship at Mt. Sinai/Elmhurst Hospital in New York. During this internship, I completed rotations in the adult inpatient unit, the child partial hospitalization program, psychiatric emergency room services, and the consultation-liaison psychiatric service, serving a patient population that is among the most ethnically and culturally diverse in the world. I am dedicated to providing high quality, empathetic, and innovative interventions to our inpatient population.
As a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Study and Treatment Center, I am deeply inspired by the resilience of the youth we serve and by the collaborative spirit of our multidisciplinary teams. My work is grounded in curiosity, compassion, and respect for the complex systems that shape young people’s lives. My approach integrates evidence-based psychopharmacology with developmental and trauma-informed care, while always centering around the individual’s unique story and strengths. I value the relational and systemic dimensions of psychiatry: the interplay between family, community, and policy that influences recovery and growth. The multidisciplinary, relational model at CSTC reflects these values and continues to shape how I think about psychiatry: not only as a science, but as a deeply human endeavor.
My research and clinical interests include third-wave, cognitive-behavioral interventions for adolescents and young adults, family-based and parenting-related support for families of youth engaging in risky or challenging behavior, suicide prevention, prevention of child maltreatment, increasing equitable access to evidence-based services, and effective collaboration with clients who have been labeled as “resistant” by prior treatment providers.
I am an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington, primarily working clinically at Harborview Medical Center. I work with the Recovery Clinic, Intake and Brief Intervention Services (IBIS), the Behavioral Health Integration Program (BHIP), and Addiction Consult Service.
I am fellowship-trained in Addiction Psychiatry, and board certified in both general and addiction psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. My passion is providing excellent, compassionate and comprehensive psychiatric care to my patients regardless of background or resources. I believe quality healthcare is a human right for all people and am excited help make that a reality as part of the Harborview system.
I am a clinical psychologist by training and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. I am also a Health Service Research Scientist at the Seattle-Denver HSR&D Center of Innovation for Veteran-Centered and Value-Driven Care at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System. My research program broadly focuses on bringing a more holistic approach to healthcare (i.e., mind, body, and spirit) and centers around two interconnected areas of investigation: 1) meaning-making and meaning in life among individuals with chronic pain and psychological distress (in particular, PTSD) and 2) developing and testing mind-body interventions that improve physical and emotional health and well-being. I am particularly interested in improving health for those in rural settings. My work has been supported by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Rie Sharky, MD, is a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Child Study and Treatment Center through the Behavioral Health Administration of the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services. There she provides inpatient psychiatric care across developmental stages, with particular interest in working with the youngest youth and extensive experience caring for older children, adolescents, and transitional-age youth. She enjoys working with individuals of all ages and their families, especially in the context of complex medication regimens and significant psychosocial and systemic challenges.
Dr. Sharky is committed to improving outcomes for young people facing complex mental health needs and structural barriers to care. Her clinical approach emphasizes the development of meaningful, collaborative therapeutic relationships with youth and the caregivers and systems that support them.
Dr. Sandel-Fernandez’s research is focused on predicting impulsive and risk behaviors as they occur in people’s daily lives. She has conducted numerous studies using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) and self-monitoring data from therapy to build person-specific models of symptom dynamics including self-harm, substance use, and suicide attempts.
Dr. Sandel-Fernandez often takes an idiographic (person-specific) analysis approach to answer the question of when in time a person is most at risk for engaging in behaviors they would like to avoid, based on their context, emotions, and personal triggers. Her career goal is to improve treatment outcomes by tailoring evidence-based care to people’s diverse symptom experiences.
Dr. Sandel-Fernandez also studies the use of digital tools and AI in mental health research, training, and treatment. This currently includes: prediction of suicide risk from internet (Google, YouTube, and TikTok) use, a pilot of mobile suicide risk monitoring in UW primary care, and development of an AI-supported simulation training laboratory with simulated patients that trainees can use to hone their clinical skills.
Christina Warner, MD (she/her) is the attending psychiatrist for the Early Psychosis Clinic and Partial Hospitalization Program at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She has clinical expertise in mood disorders, psychosis spectrum disorders, First Episode Psychosis, chronic suicidality, mood dysregulation, neurodiversity, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
Dr. Warner is a Washington native and graduate of the Seattle Public School system with a vested interest in expanding access to high quality mental health care in her community.
I am a faculty member and licensed clinical psychologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Before joining this department, I completed my Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Purdue University, residency at the University of Washington, and fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
My research interests primarily center around romantic relationship functioning and personality disorder (PD) measurement. My line of PD research centers around how the use of a trait-based, dimensional approach to assessing and measuring PDs may increase construct validity, reliability, and diagnostic accuracy relating to PDs. My romantic relationship research centers around how romantic relationship functioning and interpersonal behaviors are associated with psychopathology diagnoses and symptoms.
As a clinician, I specialize in treating suicidality and self-harm using comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy; in treating PTSD using Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure; and in treating anxiety-related disorders using exposure therapies like Exposure and Response Prevention for OCD and Exposure for Social Anxiety. I am also passionate about providing couples’ therapy.
