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.
I work at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in the outpatient clinic. I primarily practice from an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) perspective. The cancer experience can be emotional. I find deep purpose in supporting patients to improve their quality of life and coping strategies as they face one of life’s most challenging experiences. I like to work with patients on identifying their values and then guide them towards action even when experiencing treatment challenges or uncertainty about the future. My research interests are in stress and health, particularly in the relation of cancer-related PTSD symptoms and pain on health outcomes among cancer survivors. I also have training in telepsychology, rural mental health, substance use, and mental health integration in primary care clinics through a HRSA funded grant in graduate school and internship training at a federally qualified health center (FQHC). On fellowship, I provided inpatient consultation liaison psychotherapy. My hobbies include running, swimming, yoga, and baking.
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.
Dr. Katherine Seldin is a faculty member and licensed clinical psychologist in the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. Before joining this department, Dr. Seldin completed her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Washington, residency at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and fellowship at the University of Ilinois Chicago.
Dr. Seldin specializes in delivering evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapies (CBTs), including mindfulness-based and exposure-based psychotherapies such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). Her research interests include mood disorders, sleep, digital intervention, emotional impulsivity, and ecological momentary assessment methodology.
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. Dahyeon Kang is an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She earned her doctoral degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where her work focused on the etiology of alcohol and substance use disorders through multimodal research methods, including alcohol administration, neuroimaging, transdermal biosensors, and ecological momentary assessments. At the University of Washington’s Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Kang investigates how individual and social factors interact to influence alcohol and cannabis use behaviors.
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.
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.
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.
