Yale Forensic Psychiatry Fellows 2023-2024

Stephanie is originally from NYC. She went to Barnard College, where she received a BA in Spanish and Latin American literature. After graduating from college, she spent two years teaching NYC high school students for an education non-profit. She attended medical school at Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, and then went on to do psychiatry residency at the University of Chicago. There, she became interested in working with urban, underserved populations that interface with the justice system. While a resident, Stephanie was an APA SAMHSA fellow, and carried out research investigating implicit bias and healthcare inequities, particularly in the use of chemical sedation and physical restraints to manage patient agitation in the emergency room. Her professional interests include psychodynamic psychotherapy, jail diversion programs, and cultural psychiatry.

Melissa was born and raised in Michigan. She attended Yale University and received a bachelor's degree in psychology. Before medical school, she worked with formerly incarcerated individuals in New Haven, completed her premedical coursework at Goucher College, and then worked at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. She completed her medical degree at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She stayed at Hopkins for her psychiatry residency, where she served as a chief resident during her fourth year. She is interested in correctional psychiatry, medical ethics, harm reduction, and academic-community partnerships.

Luca was born and raised in Italy, where he completed medical school and a psychiatry residency at the University of Perugia. During his fourth year of residency, he came to New York as a Visiting Scholar at Lenox Hill Hospital. After graduating from residency, he returned to New York as a research coordinator first and then as an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University. Luca went back into training and completed residency at Mount Sinai Morning Side and West, where he continued to cultivate his interests in public psychiatry, social determinants of mental health, LGBTQ+ mental health, and global mental health. His research has focused on trajectories of recovery, social determinants of mental health, psycholinguistic of schizophrenia, and diversion from jail for people with serious mental illness.

Charlotte grew up in New Jersey. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at Duke University with minors in Chemistry and German. She then attended Semmelweis University Faculty of Medicine in Budapest. As a medical student, she participated in clinical rotations in Hungary, Germany, and the United States. Charlotte then returned to Duke for residency training in General Psychiatry. During her work at the state hospital, she became increasingly interested in the interactions between the legal system and individuals who have severe, persistent mental illness. Charlotte went on to complete a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, allowing her to cultivate a developmental perspective on psychiatric conditions. She is currently a Law and Psychiatry Fellow at Yale. Her professional interests include creating effective mental health policy for youth, addressing housing instability, and reducing recidivism through restorative justice.

Harshit was born and raised in Dehradun, India. After completing medical school at PGIMS, Rohtak, he worked in a Thalassemia clinic and provided telehealth services while preparing for his psychiatry residency in the United States. As a research scholar at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Long Island, he worked on Schizophrenia research for a year before starting his residency at Mount Sinai Morningside and West, where served as chief resident. His areas of interest include law and psychiatry, sleep, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and LGBTQ+ and global mental health.