Larissa Gaias

Larissa Gaias, Ph.D., is an Acting Assistant Professor of School Mental Health and Implementation Science, located at the SMART Center within the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. In her position, she primarily works with the SMART Center’s Training and Technical Assistance Core (TACore) to support schools, districts, community organizations, state agencies, and other partners in building accessible, effective, and equitable mental health services and systems for youth. She is passionate about building collaborative partnerships that apply knowledge and expertise from research, practice, policy, and lived experience into action. Her research centers on incorporating an equity-explicit lens into the development, implementation, and evaluation of school- and community-based social-emotional, behavioral, and mental health practices and policies. Larissa also has methodological expertise that spans quantitative, qualitative, mixed, and participatory approaches.

Connor McCabe

As a clinical and quantitative psychologist, my work bridges statistical practice and psychological theory to better identify for whom, under what conditions, and why substance-related health disparities are greatest across development. My substantive research seeks to understand how individual differences in stress and developing self-regulation shape substance use and disorder from adolescence through young adulthood, and how these associations explain substance use disparities among sexual and gender minoritized communities. Stemming from this work, my methodological research is centered on improving the analysis and interpretation of nonlinear effects spanning parametric and non-parametric methodologies.

Adam Kuczynski

I am a clinical psychologist with specialized training in serious mental illness and inpatient psychiatric care. I earned my PhD from the University of Washington in 2023 after completing my pre-doctoral internship at the same institution, training in serious mental illness and inpatient care at Harborview Medical Center and psycho-oncology at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. My research focuses on developing novel technologies to support patients with serious mental illness, improve the provision of psychological interventions in the inpatient setting, and more efficiently and effectively train future generations of mental health clinicians. I also work as a psychologist on UW’s long-term civil commitment inpatient psychiatry program.

Chris Nguyen

I am a psychiatrist at the UW. I primarily work at the Long-Term Civil Commitment Unit at Northwest and the consult service at University of Washington Montlake. I see patients with severe mental illness and chronic mental health problems. I also help with the treatment of patients with delirium and medical comorbidities that impact their mental health. I also help plan and give didactics for the Psychiatry residency at UW. My areas of interests are resident education, consult-liason, global mental health, perinatal psychiatry, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Karís Casagrande

Karís Casagrande (she/they), PhD, is a clinical psychologist and director of community outreach at Seattle Children’s Autism Center. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital, and is an alum of the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities (LEND) program. Clinically, she specializes in neurodevelopmental assessment, parent coaching models of intervention focused on behavior and social communication, and cognitive-behavioral therapy for individuals with neurodevelopmental differences. She is engaged in community outreach and capacity-building research and programming to improve access to and quality of care for individuals with autism and their families in their home communities. Previously, she was the president of a community non-profit advocacy group and worked with community organizations such as museums, theaters, and hotels to increase accessibility and inclusion for individuals with sensory and developmental differences. She is excited to continue engaging communities and improving accessibility in this new role at the Autism Center. 

Jonathan Kanter

I am a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and in the UW Psychology Department,  where I am Director of the Center for the Science of Social Connection.  I also am a member of the leadership team of the UW Medicine’s Office of Healthcare Equity, where I am Director of EDI Training and Education.  My research and training efforts focus on understanding and intervening on bias and microaggressions, improving EDI training and consultation efforts, and developing close relationships especially across the differences that typically divide us.

I use the pronouns he, him, his.

Michelle H. Dick

I am a bilingual, bicultural psychiatrist with interests in cultural psychiatry, psychotherapy, trauma-informed care, and improving quality of care and safety for our patients/families that receive care in a language other than English and other underserved communities.

I joined the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry faculty at the University of Washington in Fall of 2022 after completing my Child and Adolescent Psychiatry training here at the University of Washington at Seattle Children’s Hospital and General Psychiatry SUNY Upstate Medical University, with emphasis in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and Trauma Focused- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Samuel Jackson

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. I received my MD from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and completed my General Psychiatry Residency at the same institution. I completed a fellowship in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (formerly Psychosomatic Medicine) at the University of Washington. I have academic interests in the intersection of medicine and psychiatry, LGBTQ mental health and wellbeing, and medical education. I currently see patients at Harborview Medical Center’s Madison HIV Clinic.

Jonathan W. Reeves

I am an Acting Assistant Professor and licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. I received my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley and completed by postdoctoral training at the University of Washington. I am also a consultant for multiple teaching and implementation projects aimed helping community mental health providers deliver effective evidence-based trauma-informed care.

My career goal is to help survivors of complex trauma learn to thrive. My research and clinical work explores how mobile technology, principles of evidence-based practice, and our sociocultural context can be used to help survivors of trauma and their communities recover faster. My work specifically emphasizes recovery from complex racial trauma and other forms of identity-based trauma.

Akansha Vaswani-Bye

I am a counseling psychologist interested in developing and implementing culturally responsive, evidence-informed, family-centered, and non-pathologizing interventions. My practice and research are informed by postmodern ideas, especially narrative therapy. I provide clinical services at the Madison Clinic at Harborview Medical Center.