Our Team

Dr. Areti Vassilopoulos has been the Yale site director for the Comfort Ability Program (CAP) since 2020. She facilitates the youth series within the CAP workshop. She is also the Primary Investigator for research studies within the program, where CAP family feedback is the driving force for work within and outside of Yale.

Monica Barreto, Ph.D, Assistant Clinical Professor at the Yale Child Study Center. She received her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at Western Michigan University. Monica earned a M.S. in Applied Developmental Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh and received her B.S. in Psychology from Barry University. Monica completed her pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training at the Yale Child Study Center with a specialty in Pediatrics. Dr. Barreto is currently a community faculty and co-facilitator for the Comfort Ability Program.

Emily graduated from Davidson College with a B.S. in Psychology and Sociology in 2021. She is passionate about using natural language processing methods to study culturally relevant phenomenon. Pursuant to this, she spent her undergraduate years harnessing Reddit, Twitter, and popular media to study how individuals perceive sexual violence and pro recovery eating disorder communities. In addition, Emily developed a skillset for working with school-age children with and without behavioral issues through work with community centers. After graduation, Emily joined her passions in studying culturally relevant phenomenon and working with children at the Yale Anxiety & Mood Disorders Program. She is developing her clinical skillset by working with children and adolescents on NIMH-funded clinical trials for treatment of anxiety. Her current research focuses on social media use in socially anxious children and their parents. Emily hopes to earn her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, balancing clinical work and research.

Emily Mariotti, Ph.D. is the Pediatric Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow at the Yale Child Study Center. Emily received her B.S. in psychology from Pennsylvania State University, where her research focused on sibling relationships, temperament, and parenting in early childhood. After completing her undergraduate degree, she worked as a psychometrist and research assistant at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, where she received specialized training in developmental, cognitive, and psychoeducational assessment, and achieved clinical and research reliability with select modules from the ADOS-2. Her time at Nationwide Children’s Hospital led her to pursue a master’s degree in clinical psychology at Loyola University Maryland. Her master’s thesis examined potential links between executive functions and social skills proficiency in young children to illustrate some of the less explored factors that may lead to kindergarten retention. During her master’s program, Emily completed one research externship and one clinical externship through the Johns Hopkins Hospital Division of Medical Psychology. She received training in neuropsychological assessment with adults with neurodegenerative disorders and assisted with data collection and measure validation focusing on cognitive screeners and externalizing behaviors in individuals with dementia. Emily earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She also earned a minor in statistics and received specialized training in assessment for children with ADHD and specific learning disorders. During her doctoral training, she completed clinical practica at the East Tennessee Children’s Hospital and Cherokee Health Systems, where she worked with children, adolescents, and adults with a variety of clinical presentations. Emily received training in interventions for chronic pain and illness recovery, Parent-Child Interaction Therapy, mentalization-based therapy for children, and gender-affirming cognitive behavioral therapy. Her dissertation research explored foundations of temperament and cognition in school-age children that are thought to influence the development of self-regulation and related learning abilities, such as visual planning and organization. Currently, Emily’s clinical interests include psychological assessment, pain management in children with medical illness, and working with parents of children with chronic medical illness.

Sophie graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Psychology in 2021. She spent her undergraduate years researching cognitive development in school-age children. She received the Lorraine Nadelman Honors Thesis Award for her independent research on children’s perceptions of the Covid-19 pandemic. In her work translating scientific research to the broader community, Sophie researched children’s perceptions of non-native English speakers and explored novel ways to combat harmful racial and linguistic stereotypes for school-age children. After graduation, Sophie joined the Anxiety & Mood Disorders Laboratory to further her clinical skillset and advocacy work with children and families. Sophie continues to translate science to the educational community by working with and supporting children with Social Anxiety Disorder. Sophie hopes to continue her work advocating for children in the education system.

Lindsey graduated from Smith College in 2022 with an A.B. in Neuroscience and a minor in Applied Statistics. During her time as an undergraduate student, Lindsey worked in neuropsychology and psychophysiology research labs, including an internship at the Human Neurobehavioral Core Service at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). She also completed a senior honors thesis, under the supervision of Dr. Ellen Hanson at BCH, on the relationships between  socioeconomic status and self-injurious behaviors in children with ASD which received a designation of High Honors. Currently, Lindsey is a Sara S. Sparrow Fellow in Clinical Neuroscience in the McPartland Lab. She hopes to pursue a career as a clinical child psychologist with the goal of improving the well-being of children with developmental disabilities and chronic illnesses, and reducing the barriers that these children and their families face.

Violet Tan currently works as a research assistant at the Yale Psychology Department Clinic. Before this, she worked as a postgraduate associate at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. She earned a B.A. from the Vassar College with concentrations in Psychological Science and Chinese. Ms. Tan's research interests include positive psychology, mental health, and adolescent development.