Forty trainees recognized at annual Yale Child Study Center graduation event

The Yale Child Study Center (YCSC), which serves as the department of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, honored forty trainees in the class of 2024 at an annual departmental commencement event on June 21, 2024. The event was followed by a reception for graduates and their families.

Held in person in the Cohen Auditorium and simulcast via Zoom, the event began with a welcome given by YCSC Chair Linda Mayes, followed by a lively and humble keynote speech delivered by YCSC Professor Michael Bloch, who also serves as co-director of the T32 postdoctoral research fellowship in childhood neuropsychiatric disorders as well as associate program director of the Solnit integrated training program.

Bloch shared details about his personal background and professional journey, along with some of the lessons he is continuing to work on. Relaying a metaphor based on the 2015 online viral image of a dress that some saw as white and gold and others as blue and black, he noted, “There’s an important lesson to learn from this dress, that people can have completely different perceptions of the same image based on previous experience, color, perception, underlying neurobiology.”

He went on to say, “Try to listen, respect, and understand other people’s story, experiences, and opinions. They may be very different from you. They may actually literally see things differently. As we're lucky enough to have an environment with increasing diversity of perspectives, training paths, and experiences – we need to recognize this also as we're treating patients with greater diversity.”

Bloch handed the podium over to Dorothy Stubbe, a professor at the YCSC who also serves as the program director of residency and fellowship training. Before she began the individual recognitions for the child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship graduates, she offered a few remarks.

Michele Goyette-Ewing, associate professor and director of the psychology training program followed Stubbe to recognize psychology fellows. Carolina Rivera Parrott, assistant clinical professor and director of the advanced clinical social work fellowship took the podium next, followed by Associate Professor Michael Crowley for the research training program in in childhood neuropsychiatric disorders and then Associate Professor Helena Rutherford for the graduate program in developmental neuroscience and psychopathology, run in collaboration with the Anna Freud Centre and University College London.

The honorees recognized at the event by training program were as follows.

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

• Matthew Carriero Johnson, MD
• Joseph Albert Knoble, MD
• Allison Michie Lawler, MD
• Maria Ghanbari Motlagh, MD
• Onyi Okeke, MD
• Brittany N. Atuahene Robinson, MD
• Sherab Tsheringla, MD, MBBS

Completion of Psychiatry Residency

• Nora Hassan Abdullah, MD
• Sarah Barbara Abdallah, MD
• Alexis Nicole Benedetto, MD, MPH
• Nelson Jorge Rubio Giraldo, MD
• Kayla Isaacs, MD
• Isaac N.S. Johnson, MD
• Samuel Brady Sondalle, MD, PhD
• Bonnie Yam, MD

Albert J. Solnit Integrated Psychiatry

• Jelena Goldoni MacLeod, MD, MHS

Pre-Doctoral Internship in Psychology

• Marissa Bivona, MEd
• Barbara Storch, MA
• Leah Wang, MA
• Kristina Washington, MEd

Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Psychology

• Saja Almusawi, PhD
• Danielle R. Novick, PhD
• Christine Teal Raffaele, PhD
• Cara Celine Tomaso, PhD

Social Work Program

• Christian Edwards, MSW, LCSW
• Stephanie Salazar, LMSW

Research Training Program in Childhood Neuropsychiatric Disorders

• Alan H. Gerber, PhD
• Jason W. Griffin, PhD
• Jelena G. MacLeod, MD, MHS

M.Res. in Developmental Neuroscience & Psychopathology, Anna Freud Centre and University College London

• Erin Basol, BA
• Jade Bouffard, BSc
• Satvika Char, BSc
• Yulan Chen, BA
• Olivia Cuevas Geiger, BSc
• Bethan Gilligan, BSc
• Maisha Hossain, BA
• Zoe Howell, BSc
• Maria Jelen, BSc
• Gihyun Kim, BA
• Danai Ioakeimidou, BSc
• Tara Ramsay-Patel, BA