Residency Program Directors

The Residency Program Directors have many roles including providing you with guidance about developing your career. The Program Directors also develop fair processes to assure that all stakeholders, including residents, faculty, institutions and our patients, have an opportunity to have input into decision making about the program.

Richard Belitsky, MD
Interim Program Director; Associate Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Belitsky was named Interim Director of the Yale Psychiatry Residency Program in 2021. He previously served as the Residency Program Director from 1996-2006. He became the Deputy Chair for Education in the Yale Department of Psychiatry in 2001 and served in that role until he was promoted to Deputy Dean for Education at Yale School of Medicine in 2006. He is noted for his work in medical education at both the undergraduate (medical student) and graduate (resident) levels. He is concerned with curriculum development, particularly with respect to the methods and challenges involved in teaching medical students in the areas of patient-centered medical interviewing, the biopsychosocial model, social history and counseling patients for behavior change.

Esperanza Diaz, MD
Associate Program Director and Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Díaz attended Javeriana University in Bogotá, Colombia, and completed Psychiatry residency training at Yale. She graduated from the Western New England Institute for Psychoanalysis. As medical director of the Hispanic Clinic and its expansion to the community, mental health services for Limited English proficiency populations are a model. She founded the Hispanic Psychiatry Fellowship addressing mental health disparities in Latinos. Along with residents, she developed the Cultural Psychiatry curriculum, a predecessor of the Social Justice and Health Equity curriculum. Her work with the medical school Teaching and Learning Center addresses cultural sensitivity and microaggressions management training. Using an experiential model, she leads interviewing training for residents. She chairs the evaluation committee to review and revise the Yale Psychiatry evaluation system.

Miyun Kang, MD
Associate Program Director and Assistant Clinical Professor

Upon graduating from the Yale Psychiatry Residency program in 2005, Dr. Kang became an attending psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Clinic, where she continues to provide care to veterans. Her experience at the VA has also included years of working in residential programs and delivering telepsychiatry services to veterans outside of Connecticut. She is actively involved in the clinical supervision, didactic education and mentoring of Yale residents in a variety of settings at the VA. Her interest in psychiatric education has led to her collaboration in national and local efforts to coordinate virtual educational presentations for clinicians.

Katherine Klingensmith, MD
Associate Program Director and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Klingensmith attended University of Rochester SOM and completed psychiatry residency here at Yale. She is an adult psychiatrist and medical director for the YNHH New Haven Adult Intensive Outpatient Program (YNHH IOP), and the Physician Lead for Ambulatory Services within the behavioral health service line for the Yale New Haven Hospital. Dr. Klingensmith provides clinical care within the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Program at the YNHH IOP. She also serves on the Graduate Education Committee and Clinical Competency Committee and chairs the residency Wellness Task Force, which seeks to identify structural challenges to wellness for both faculty and residents.

Ruby Lekwauwa, MD
Associate Program Director and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

Dr. Lekwauwa completed her adult psychiatry residency at Yale in 2015, followed by her child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center in 2017. After training, she spent considerable time providing clinical care to children, teens, and their families in CT as well as leadership to clinical teams within a variety of settings. She is currently the medical director for the YNHH Adolescent Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) where she also manages and coordinates the one-month child and adolescent psychiatry ambulatory rotation in the PGY1 year. She has published in the areas of trauma and religion/spirituality and has specific clinical interests in culturally responsive engagement with marginalized and high-risk patient populations. She is actively involved in clinical supervision and mentoring of residents.