Doyanne Darnell

Personal Statement

My research aims to improve the public health impact of evidence-based behavioral health interventions for addressing comorbidities common among ethnoculturally diverse and underserved victims of trauma, including PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation, and risky substance use. I study the integration of behavioral interventions into general medical settings, with an emphasis on provider-centered training methods to support the delivery of patient-centered interventions. My current interest is in harnessing technologic innovations in machine learning and artificial intelligence, along with user-centered design, to enhance suicide prevention training scalability and sustainability. https://darnell.psychiatry.uw.edu/  

Greg Reger

I am a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and I work as the Deputy Associate Chief of Staff for Mental Health at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System.  I am a licensed clinical psychologist. My research is focused on studying mental health technologies to support Veterans, Service Members, their families, and the health care staff that treat them. I research mobile applications, virtual reality, virtual standardized patients, and other innovative approaches to improve mental health education and services. I have conducted DoD and VA funded research and focus on applied interventions that may have promise to make a difference in the lives of those we serve. I am an Army Veteran and current behavioral health officer in the Washington State Army National Guard.

Patrick Raue

Personal Statement

I am Professor and Associate Director for Evidence-Based Psychosocial Interventions at the AIMS Center, and Director of the National Network of PST Clinicians, Trainers & Researchers. In these roles, I develop and lead implementation and training programs in a variety of behavioral health interventions.

Mark Sullivan

Personal Statement

My clinical service and research focuses on the interaction of mental and physical illness, especially in patients with chronic pain. Much of my research in recent decades has focused on the risks of treating chronic pain with opioids. I have developed educational programs and outcome tracking tools to assist with opioid treatment of chronic pain. I have published a book about patient empowerment in chronic disease care, The Patient as Agent of Health and Health Care (Oxford, 2017). I have another book written with Jane Ballantyne forthcoming, The Right to Pain Relief and other deep roots of the opioid epidemic (Oxford, 2022).

Ann Cotton

Personal Statement

I am a Clinical Psychologist working in the Addiction Treatment Center, VA Puget Sound Healthcare System, Seattle Division since 2000. I work primarily on the Opiate Use Disorder treatment team (ATC Team 1) with both male and female Veterans on pharmacological maintenance therapy (methadone, buprenorphine, or naloxone). I am on faculty for the Seattle VA Psychology Training Program, Seattle VA CESATE Multidisciplinary Fellowship Program, and UW Psychiatry Residency Program as a clinical supervisor for psychotherapy.

Katherine Anne (Kate) Comtois

Personal Statement

My career goal is to give suicidal clients and their clinicians the best chance to succeed. I have been working in the area of health services, treatment development, and clinical trials research to prevent suicide for over 30 years. My graduate training was in community/clinical psychology and focused on achieving clinical ends through prevention and other systemic interventions in socio-culturally diverse populations. I have brought these perspectives into health services research.  I have developed or adapted interventions to improve care and clinician willingness to work with suicidal patients including Caring Contacts, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS), and Preventing Addiction Related Suicide (PARS). I have developed an adaptation of DBT Next Steps, a program to assist psychiatrically disabled individuals find and maintain living wage employment. My research has been funded by NIMH, NIDA, the Department of Defense, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, and the State of Washington.

I am the director of the Center for Suicide Prevention and Recovery (CSPAR) whose mission is to promote the recovery of suicidal individuals and the effectiveness and well-being the clinicians and families who care for them by conducting rigorous and ecologically valid research, developing innovative interventions, improving policies, systems and environments of care, and providing expert training and consultation. CSPAR faculty and staff seek a deep understanding of the cultures and settings in which we work that leads to meaningful and effective interventions ready for implementation.

I also direct the Suicide Care Research Center, an NIMH P50 funded research center focused on using Human Centered Design and MOST optimization methodology to improve the care of adolescents and young adults (age 13-30 years) in outpatient medical settings. We are conducting one fully powered trial, three R34s, and 4 pilot studies within UW Medicine and Seattle Children’s hospital to develop innovative interventions to support primary care, Collaborative Care, and specialty medical clinics care for patients experiencing suicidal thoughts and behavior. The center supports effort of over 20 faculty and 16 staff as well as 11 emerging and advanced collaborating scholars and funds 2 annual pilot grants (each $100,000 over two years).

In addition to clinical research, I founded the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) focused on disseminating and implementing innovative, evidence-based interventions in the systems that need them. Beyond my research, I directed the Harborview Dialectical Behavior Therapy program at Harborview Medical Center 1996-2019, co-lead the UWAnnual Comprehensive DBT Training Program and Suicide Care in Healthcare Systems: We Can Do Better Serving our Patients and Caring for our Clinicians, both of which meet the Washington State requirement for suicide prevention training.  I have a long history of training and mentoring junior faculty, post-doctoral scholars, psychiatry residents, pre-doctoral psychology interns, undergraduate students, and post-baccalaureate trainees. I provide psychotherapy and consultation at the UWMC Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic.

Michael Storck

Personal Statement

​I am a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who has served for over 20 years as the attending psychiatrist on the middle-schooler unit at Child Study and Treatment Center. I also serve, 25% time , as “College Mentor” in the UW School of Medicine Introduction to Clinical Medicine Curriculum where I mentor six students in each UW SoM class through their four year curriculum. I serve as preceptor/supervisor for one CAP fellow during their rotation at CSTC. I also run the elective clerkship for fourth year medical students (approximately 10 students/year) during 2 and 4 week rotations at CSTC.

Kristen Perry

Personal Statement

Dr. Kristen Perry works for the VA Center for Integrated Healthcare (CIH) as the Associate Director of Education & Implementation for Mental Health Integration into Specialty Medicine clinics. Her clinical and research interests include furthering integration and collaboration between mental health and primary care providers, use of technology (e.g., secure messaging, clinical video-teleconferencing, mobile apps) in clinical practice, and documentation and coding.​

Jagoda Pasic

Personal Statement

Helping individuals in the time of their personal crisis, whether emotional, psychological or behavioral, is what feeds my passion for psychiatry. 

Heather Carmichael Olson

Personal Statement

I am a psychologist who carries out research, provides community education to a broad range of audiences, trains postgraduate students, works on public policy– and has served as a clinician with children and families for many years. My main interests are fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), early childhood mental health, and interventions for children born prenatally exposed to alcohol and other drugs and their families. My research is currently based at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, but I also work in collaboration with UW researchers– and scientists at the University of Rochester in New York and multiple other academic institutions. A main research focus has been the Families Moving Forward (FMF) Program, a family-focused FASD intervention, now being disseminated primarily in the USA and Canada.  The FMF Program is also now being translated into a mobile health application, called FMF Connect, for even broader use. Through Seattle Children’s, I co-direct a pilot service focused on assessment and short-term consultation for youth with prenatal substance exposure (including alcohol), and their families. I also offer mental health services to a broad range of young children and develops research focused on early childhood mental health. Over the years, beyond research and clinical work, I have been able to work toward change in national US public policy, collaborate with Indigenous communities and researchers in remote Northwestern Australia, and train dedicated young professionals in psychology and psychiatry. I am grateful for these remarkable career opportunities… and the chance to meet so many resilient and inspiring families. Note that you can only reach me through my Seattle Children’s email, at: heather.carmichaelolson@seattlechildrens.org