I am currently the Medical Director at the Garvey Institute Center for Neuromodulation and am providing leadership to help grow our portfolio in the area of Neuromodulation and Interventional Psychiatry. Before coming to the UW, I was the Muriel Harris Chair of Geriatric Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCLA. While at UCLA, I held many administrative, clinical and teaching leadership positions including serving as Medical Director of Inpatient Geriatric Psychiatry, Chief of Staff of the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Founding Faculty of the UCLA Neuromodulation Division, Medical Director of the ECT and Interventional Psychiatry Program, among others.
I recently became Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of ECT and Related Therapies, the official publication of the International Society of ECT and Neurostimulation. My research projects have included investigating various neuromodulation and interventional therapies and developing novel educational programs and curricula. I have an abiding interest in mentoring and helping faculty at the start of their careers and a commitment to fostering the advancement of women and underrepresented minority (URM) faculty in academic medicine.
My clinical and research interests center around behavioral and psychological symptoms that present in neurodegenerative diseases, especially dementias. Though dementia is well-known to affect one’s memory and cognition, over 90% of people with dementia develop new neuropsychiatric symptoms – including apathy, dysphoria. anxiety, aggression, agitation, disinhibition, hallucinations, and delusions. Despite the ubiquity of these symptoms, very little is known about how they develop in dementia. My research interests are in understanding more about the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuropsychiatric symptoms in dementia beyond the well-studied changes associated with cognitive deficits.
Along with my research mentor Martin Darvas PhD (Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology), we employ numerous approaches to better understand these neuropsychiatric symptoms, including techniques involving transcriptomic analyses of human and mouse post-mortem tissue, development and implementation of biomarkers derived from human and animal model fluids (plasma, serum, cerebrospinal fluid), virally-mediated gene manipulations, animal modeling of cognitive and neuropsychiatric phenotypes, and basic cellular and molecular biology techniques.
I am a practicing psychiatrist and health services researcher whose research has focused on system-level strategies to deliver high-quality care in settings with few clinical resources or available specialists. I am board certified in general adult psychiatry and geriatric psychiatry and my clinical work has included provision of psychiatric outpatient, inpatient, and emergency services care. I am interested in leveraging existing community infrastructure and adapting evidence based clinical practices to suit community contexts to reduce treatment gaps.
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.
My research broadly aims to better understand the etiology of depression and risk behaviors such as suicide and substance use across development, and translate findings to inform prevention and intervention strategies for youth and families. My work focuses on partnering with communities and primary care clinics to improve access to and use of effective mental health services.
My current projects include studies focused on adapting and evaluating suicide prevention intervention and implementation strategies for use with adolescents and their families in primary care and outpatient medical settings, including developing and adapting brief, just-in-time, and digital interventions to expand access to services.
In addition to research, I am also a clinical psychologist in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program and the Crisis Care Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
I am a trained Behavioral Scientist with a PhD in Health & Human Performance. The main goal of my work is to reduce substance-related harms and improve quality of life for people experiencing problems related to their substance use. I work closely with community members who use drugs to inform my line of research and address key needs identified. My primary appointment is at the Harm Reduction Research and Treatment (HaRRT) Center within the UW School of Medicine and hold an Affiliate Faculty appointment within the School of Public Health. My aim is to adapt, refine, and disseminate harm reduction programs through digital health interventions to empower individuals and ameliorate substance-related harms.
My research focuses on how social influences shape individuals’ health behaviors in both constructive (e.g., physical activity) and risky ways (e.g., alcohol use). I take a translational approach to my research in that I aim to understand how social processes, such as normative influences, relate to behavior so that we can leverage these influences to reduce harm and improve health.
Specific areas of interest include alcohol and other substance use, mental health, and gambling/sports betting. My primary focus is helping young adults during the transition into adulthood.
I have a background in sport psychology, and am passionate about helping athletes navigate the unique stressors involved in high-level sport. In this domain, I serve as a fellow at the U.S. Center for Mental Health and Sport.
My scholarship is dedicated to reducing behavioral health disparities in Indigenous, immigrant and refugee communities. I have 13 years of experience and expertise in community-based participatory research (CBPR) science and practice, mixed-methods multi-level research design, cultural adaptation and translation of evidenced based interventions and culture-based practices, survey and measurement development, and dissemination and translation of findings. I am interested in examining culture-centered, land-based healing practices and mechanisms in addressing substance use, sexual health, and climate change impact.
