Scholarly Expertise: Treatment approaches
Josh Walther
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.
Jonathan Bricker
My lab based at Fred Hutch Cancer Center develops and tests acceptance-based therapies delivered in digital and telehealth platforms. The most preventable causes of premature death and human suffering are cigarette smoking and obesity. To this end, my research team focuses on designing, developing, and testing AI-based chatbot, smartphone app-delivered, and telephone coach-delivered contextual behavioral interventions for smoking cessation and for weight loss. Research aims include main outcome comparisons, mediators, moderators, intervention engagement, and therapeutic process predictors of outcome. This research is currently supported by multiple NIH R01-level grants. Our lab’s latest grant focuses on testing a smartphone app for helping American Indians and Alaska Natives stop smoking commercial cigarettes.
See links for further information:
https://research.fredhutch.org/habit/en/habit-group-members.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Bricker
Justin Tauscher
David Reed
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.
Eric R. Clausell
Dr. Clausell earned his doctoral degree in Clinical-Community Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011. Dr. Clausell’s graduate research focused on the legacy of childhood attachment relationships on relationship satisfaction of Gay and Lesbian Romantic Couples. Results of this research were published in the journal Developmental Psychology (2008). He completed his Predoctoral Clinical Internship at Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medicine. Dr. Clausell currently serves as the Director of the Couples & Family Program at Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle Division. In addition, Dr. Clausell serves as Lead Trainer and Consultant in VA Central Office of Family Services for the dissemination program of Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy lead by Developer & Distinguished Research Professor Dr. Andrew Christensen, at University of California, Los Angeles. Currently, Dr. Clausell serves as clinical trainer and supervisor for Seattle VA’s Clinical training programs, including Predoctoral, Postdoctoral, and the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Resident Program where he currently serves at Rotation Supervisor for the VA Outpatient Couple and Family Therapy Rotation.
Devon Sandel-Fernandez
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
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.
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.
Randall Espinoza
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.
