Integrated Child, Adolescent, and Adult Residency Program for Academic Careers in Child Psychiatry

Current Residents:
PGY-1
• Justyna Piasecka, M.D., Brown University
• Jerome Taylor, M.D., University of Virginia
PGY-2
• Kara Bagot, M.D., University of Illinois
• Rebecca Muhle, M.D., Ph.D., Albert Einstein/Yeshiva University
PGY-3
• Christopher Hammond, M.D., University of Florida at Gainesville
PGY-5
• Jon Carlson, M.D., University of Colorado
• Kyle Williams, M.D., University of Minnesota
PGY-6
• Rebecca Hommer, M.D., University of Pennsylvania
• Tamara Vanderwal, M.D., Yale University

Research Trainees

Justyna Piasecka  As an undergraduate at Brown University, Justyna majored in history while completing the first four years of Brown's 8-year PLME program (Program in Liberal Medical Education). She first became interested in research as an undergrad while working with Dr. Stephen McGarvey on a study in American and Western Samoa, which examined the interplay between genetics and environmental factors on obesity and diabetes. After college Justyna worked as an Americorps volunteer for a nonprofit which organized outdoor programs for individuals with disabilities in the Boston area, and she also pursued a sports psychology internship in Florida before returning to Brown University for medical school. In her 4th year her interest in international health was reinforced by a tropical medicine elective in Kenya, where she was also struck by the extent to which medical and psychiatric wellbeing were intertwined. Upon completion of her clinical rotations, Justyna took an NIMH predoctoral fellowship and joined Dr. Eric Morrow's lab at Brown University. There she worked on the Developmental Disorders Genetics Research Program, which aims to identify genetic changes associated with autism and intellectual disability. After graduating from medical school she continued her work with the project for another year, which cemented her desire to work in both the clinical and research setting with individuals affected by autism and developmental disorders. She is also interested in writing articles and books which make research and new medical knowledge on autism accessible to laypeople. In her spare moments, Justyna enjoys tennis, photography, reading, and globetrotting, as well as spending time with her husband Nestor and mastiff Bernie.

Jerome Taylor was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. He has two AMAZING younger sisters. He attended Rice University, graduating summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry and Cell Biology.  While an undergraduate, Jerome did basic science research on how interferons modulate smooth airway cell growth, which resulted in a publication. Although, he enjoyed basic science research, he wanted to explore more clinical scientific endeavors. Jerome went on to attend medical school at the University of Virginia, where he was active in the Student National Medical Association and organized several community service projects. During third year of medical school, Jerome fell in love with psychiatry.  After third year of medical school, Jerome took a year off to gain clinical research experience in the Applied Epidemiology Fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. While at the CDC, he participated in projects on H1N1 influenza, Hepatitis B vaccination, and the cultural determinants of obesity.  During his year off, he was also a Big Brother in the Big Brothers Big Sisters Program to a fifth grader with ADHD and behavioral difficulties. Upon returning to medical school, Jerome worked on  a project looking at the role of glutamic acid decarboxylase antibodies in schizophrenia and a project looking at the effectiveness of childhood social phobia treatment.  Jerome also gave a CME presentation on the treatment of childhood sexual abuse at Western State Psychiatric Hospital in Virginia. He also gave a presentation to a predominately African-American church in Philadelphia on recognizing and treating depression and fighting the stigma psychiatric illnesses have within the African-American community. Jerome is excited about joining Yale’s Solnit Integrated Adult, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry residency, and is interested in psychiatric epidemiology research, social phobia, the stigma of psychiatric illnesses in minority communities, and prodromal schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.  Jerome enjoys working out, watching basketball and tennis, and reminiscing about the 90s with friends.

Kara Bagot   As an undergraduate at the Johns Hopkins University, Kara conducted research at the Kennedy Krieger Institute on a project entitled “The Neurobiology of Attention in Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS),” which examined the neurobehavioral, neuropsychological and neuroanatomic effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on children.  In determining the neurobehavioral phenotype, specifically as it relates to attention, of children with FAS, the study aimed to elucidate targeted psychopharmacotherapy, reducing long-term morbidity associated with the diagnosis of FAS. Before commencing medical school, Kara completed a 2-year fellowship at the National Institute of Drug Abuse (Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics Research Branch) as an Intramural Research Training Award Fellow in the Teen Tobacco Addiction Treatment Research Clinic. This research involved exploration of a variety of psychiatric disorders and their correlation to nicotine dependence, addiction and cessation, as well as manner in which Bupropion medication therapy mediates smoking cessation in an adolescent population.    At the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, Kara examined the dynamic interplay between HIV serostatus and heroin and cocaine addiction as well as HIV serostatus and executive functions such as goal-directed behavior involving planning, organizing, strategizing and working memory. The objectives of her research were to explore the detrimental effect of drug abuse superimposed on the effects of the virus including examining the vulnerability to neurocognitive deficits, in the setting of drug abuse, which HIV serostatus confers, and whether the combined effects of drug abuse and HIV positivity created a differential subset of AIDS dementia patients who required a more individualized, unique treatment. Finally, as a fourth year medical student at UIC, in collaboration with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Kara took part in a research study evaluating quality of life (QOL) impairment in Major Depressive Disorder and the cost this impairment poses on patients.  Her particular role was to validate the hypothesis that bupropion has a positive effect on QOL in patients with MDD and that the subset of patients that would benefit most from treatment with bupropion are those with refractory or difficult to treat depression.
In her spare time, Kara enjoys long-distance running, traveling with family and friends and spending time outdoors.

Rebecca Muhle.  Rebecca Muhle, M.D., Ph.D. (entered 2010): Rebecca spent her childhood in the eastern and southern United States and Canada, then moved overseas as a teenager and lived in Saudi Arabia, Greece, and Switzerland. She returned to the States for college, and obtained a B.A. in Liberal Arts with a concentration in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin. She joined Dr. Ronald DePinho' s lab at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine studying tumor cell oncogenesis and suppression with Dr. Leila Alland, then completed further studies of infection-induced preterm labor in the laboratory of Dr. Emmet Hirsch at Columbia University. These scientific efforts produced 7 co-authorships, and Rebecca became determined to continue a career in clinical medicine and science. She entered the Medical Scientist Training Program of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and obtained her M.D. and a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology with the aid and guidance of her mentor, Dr. David A. Fidock (currently at Columbia University). Her thesis detailed the development of new molecular tools and materials to aid in the study of the antigenically variant var genes in the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum, and resulted in several papers detailing the in situ genetic regulation of var genes as well as the first published in vitro expression and functional presentation of novel mini-var genes on the surface of infected red blood cells. While completing her medical training, she also pursued her interest in autistic spectrum disorders by co-authoring a paper with Dr. Isabel Rapin, a pediatric neurologist with appointments at Jacobi and Montefiore Hospitals, who specializes in autism. Her interest in psychiatry continued to blossom during her clinical rotations, and she was awarded the Maurice Greenhill Memorial Award in Psychiatry upon graduation in 2010. She is completing her intern year with great excitement, and intends to apply her unique combination of skills in molecular biology to research in her chosen field of psychiatry. She enjoys music, movies, and literature, and also treasures family time with her husband, their two boys, and the family cat, Vitamin.

Chris Hammond Christopher J. Hammond graduated with honors from Washington University in 2002 with degrees in Psychology and Marketing.  From 2002-2005, he participated in two Post-Baccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award fellowships at the National Institute of Mental Health, one with the Geriatric Psychiatry Branch (GPB) doing Alzheimer’s disease and dementia-related research, and another with the Pediatric Developmental Neuropsychiatry Branch (PDN) doing research on PANDAS, obsessive compulsive disorder, and autistic spectrum disorders.  This intensive exposure to research made Chris acutely aware of the neurobiological underpinnings of mental illness and awoke in him a passion for the hypothesis testing, theoretical exercises, and scientific methodology that a career in clinical research offers. While at the PDN, Chris helped to organize, analyze, and write up a manuscript on the neuropsychological/cognitive profile of children with PANDAS that was published in Child Neuropsychology.  From the NIH, Chris transitioned to University of Florida College Of Medicine as a member of the Class of 2009, where he continued his research pursuits publishing articles, letters, and reviews in the fields of addiction, psychiatry, autoimmune disorders, and neurology.  He also gained exposure to international medicine participating in medical outreach trips to Ecuador and Thailand before graduating. Having developed significant interests in child neuropsychiatric disorders and addiction medicine, and with an interest in furthering his research and clinical training, Chris found the Albert J. Solnit Child & Adult Psychiatry Integrated Training Program at Yale Child Study Center (CSC) a natural next step. Chris is entering his third year in the Solnit program and has started to work on several research projects related to adolescent substance use disorders (SUDs), stress responsiveness, risk taking, and impulse control disorders (ICDs) under the collaborative mentorship of Dr. Linda Mayes, Dr. Marc Potenza, Dr. Mike Crowley, and Dr. Robert Malison, through both the Yale CSC and the Department of Psychiatry’s Adult Addiction Program.  His primary research interest is in further elucidating the roles that stress, gender, environment, and genetics play in brain development of reward and stress-related neurocircuitry, and how these factors contribute to the development of adolescent risk-taking behaviors, SUDs, and ICDs.  In his free time, he enjoys playing sports, singing, hiking, and traveling, and is an avid naturalist and photographer. 

Kyle Williams, M.D. (entered 2007): Kyle is originally from Minneapolis and grew up in Minnesota. He graduated from Carleton College and then spent two years at NIMH working with Drs. Daniel Weinberger and Dennis Murphy before entering the University of Minnesota Medical School. During medical school, Kyle received a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Research Training Fellowship for Medical Students to study the pathogenesis of Sydenham’s chorea and Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections (PANDAS).
Kyle is currently the Chief Resident in the Solnit Integrated Program and received the NIMH Outstanding Resident Award from the National Institute of Mental Health in 2009.  He continues to pursue his interest in the intersection of the immune system and brain function through his role as an Associate Investigator on a joint Yale-NIMH investigation of Intravenous Immunoglobulin treatment for PANDAS.  Kyle also received the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry/Eli Lilly Pilot Research Award in 2011 for an investigation of the role of microglia in compulsive behaviors, and is currently pursuing a PhD in the Investigative Medicine Program in the laboratory of Chris Pittenger MD, PhD.

Rebecca Hommer  As an undergraduate at Brandeis University, Rebecca studied history and wrote her honors thesis on the evolution of children’s literature during the depression and WWII. After college, Rebecca spent three years at the NIH studying infant macaque behavior and mother–infant attachment. Rebecca left the lab to attend medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, but returned to the NIH following her third year of medical school as a fellow in the Clinical Research Training Program. She joined Dr. Ellen Leibenluft’s group at the Pediatric and Developmental Neuropsychiatry branch of the NIMH where she spent a year working with children with bipolar disorder and severe mood dysregulation (SMD) and undertook a research project using fMRI techniques to study the development of motor inhibition. Rebecca is now a PGY6 resident in the Integrated Training Program. She is working on several projects under the mentorship of Dr. Linda Mayes focusing on adolescent stress reactivity and the neural correlates of stress and appetitive processes, and she received an American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Pilot Research Award to study of the effects of acute and chronic stress on adolescent decision–making. Based on her work as a Solnit fellow, Rebecca has received extramural NIH loan repayment funding as well as travel awards to attend national and international psychiatry conferences.  This fall, Rebecca plans to return to the NIH for postdoctoral work comparing youth with SMD +/- co-morbid anxiety on clinical and neurophysiological variables, assessing the parents of youth with SMD, and considering non-pharmacologic treatment approaches.

Tammy Vanderwal.   Tamara grew up in British Columbia, Canada.  She attended medical school and divinity school at Yale.  Her thesis for medical school was an fMRI project that looked at the neurofunctional underpinnings of self-referential processing.  This work was subsequently published in Neuroimage.  Throughout residency, she has worked in Linda Mayes' Developmental Electrophysiology Laboratory at the Child Study Center, studying the neurophysiological correlates of ADHD in boys, ages 8-11.  This work was supported by an AACAP pilot grant.  Tamara's upcoming project will integrate multiple brain-mapping modalities in a rapid longitudinal study of infant brain development.  In particular, she is interested in better understanding the neurological changes that facilitate changes in stimuli processing between the ages of 3 and 7 months in healthy infants.  Clinically, Tamara is developing her interests in both play therapy, and longterm psychodynamic work with adults.

Class of 2011:

Tom Fernandez, M.D. is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the Yale Child Study Center, continuing his research in psychiatric genetics.

Alexander “Lexy” Westphal, M.D. is currently a fellow in the Forensic Psychiatry Program at Yale and is continuing his research on functional imaging related to emotional processing in autism, childhood disintegrative disorder, and intellectual disability. He is completing his PhD in Investigative Medicine.

Class of 2010:

Michael Bloch, M.D. M.S. is an assistant professor on the faculty at Yale School of Medicine, an attending physician on the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit and continues his research in obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, and trichotillomania.

Hanna Stevens, M.D., Ph.D. is currently an assistant professor on the faculty of the Yale Child Study Center and now serves as Associate Training Director of the Solnit Integrated Program. She continues to build her research program on inhibitory neurons in mouse model systems and the effects of stress on brain development.