The Yale Child Study Center (YCSC) – which serves as the department of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine – welcomes and introduces new community members on an on-going basis. All new faculty, staff, and trainees are invited to share bios and photos upon joining the department, and those who wish to participate are announced approximately monthly. Meet some of the new faculty, staff, and trainees who have joined the YCSC this summer and fall.
Christine Boram Cha, PhD recently joined the YCSC as an associate professor and the inaugural core faculty member at the Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health. She is a licensed psychologist in Connecticut and New York, and for the past 15 years, her research has focused on youth suicide; specifically, how best to assess, predict, and reduce the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors early in life. Cha's work has been funded by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the US Department of Defense, and the New York City Department of Health. She serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Journal of Psychopathology and Clinical Science, and General Hospital Psychiatry. She received the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science in 2021.
Marilyn De Jesus joined the Gesell Program at the YCSC as an administrative assistant in September. She has over ten years of experience working in the early childhood education field and in National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredited centers. Previously, she served as a head teacher, successfully implementing innovative curricula aligned with the Regio Emilia approach and play-based learning. She holds a bachelor's degree in early childhood studies and a graduate certificate in leadership. She is currently pursuing her master's in business administration at Post University.
Quyen A. Do, PhD joined the Stover Lab earlier this month, where she serves as a postdoctoral associate. Her research focuses on psychological trauma and interpersonal violence examined within a multicultural and intersectional framework. Do has extensive research experience and her skillset involves project management, data collection, and advanced statistical analyses across quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research designs. She is also a licensed professional counselor in the state of Illinois. In clinical work, she adopts a trauma-informed and multicultural approach, taking into consideration how a person’s unique identities can inform their views, experiences, and the way they show up in relationships with others. She has experience working with individual adults and couples from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Hannah Ferguson joined the Landi Lab in September as a postgraduate associate on the School Project and is a recent graduate from Northeastern University, where she majored in psychology and music and earned a minor in German. She has experience working as an undergraduate research assistant in Iris Berent’s Language and Mind Lab, and for Carolin Fuchs on an applied linguistics project. She is particularly interested in reading and educational psychology and wants to better understand how struggling students learn to read. Outside of the lab, Hannah is a musician and enjoys writing music, singing, and playing her cello.
Nikime Headley joined the YCSC clinical practice as an Intensive In-Home Child and Psychiatric Services (IICAPS) clinician in July. She has master’s degrees in social work and in women and gender studies from Southern Connecticut State University, and she earned her bachelor’s degree at Quinnipiac University. During her graduate training, she completed internships in the New Haven Public Schools and at the YCSC, in the IICAPS program. Prior to joining Yale in her current faculty role, she served as a school social worker in New Haven for two years.
Jacob Pohaku Momsen, PhD joined the McPartland Lab in August as a Hilibrand Postdoctoral Fellow. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Trinity University, he gained applied experience working in early behavior intervention clinics and teaching at an intermediary school. During his graduate studies, he used neuroimaging techniques to study topics such as early word learning, and how verbal and nonverbal information. More broadly, his research aims to characterize the neurocognitive processes that support social pragmatics, including discourse comprehension, reasoning about mental states, and how non-linguistic faculties such as attention serve as a foundation for social inference and coordination. He intends to leverage empirical studies to inform clinical research and practice, as well as identify useful biomarkers for early-identification and therapeutic routing of individuals with language-related or more general communicative impairments.