Ayana Jordan, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; Katherine Klingensmith, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; and Tobias Wasser, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, have been appointed Associate Program Directors for the Yale Department of Psychiatry Residency Program.
Robert Rohrbaugh, MD, Professor of Psychiatry and Residency Program Director, announced the appointments to faculty and trainees on January 30.
Jordan, Klingensmith, and Wasser all trained in the Yale Psychiatry Residency Program before assuming faculty positions. They will replace Vinod Srihari, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, who stepped down from the Associate Program Director position last year after a decade of service. Srihari is Director of the Specialized Treatment Early in Psychosis (STEP) Program at Yale.
Jordan directs the Global Mental Health Program at Yale and the social justice and health equity curriculum within the residency. She is also Medical Director of the REACH scholars program, an educational program which aims to train a national cohort of physicians and allied health professionals committed to improving health equity in addiction services. Her research focuses on community partnership with faith settings to improve addiction treatment and outcomes for minoritized populations. One such program, IMANI Breakthrough, partners with five Black and four Latinx churches to improve addiction outcomes throughout the state of Connecticut.
Klingensmith manages resident clinical experiences at Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale Psychiatric Hospital as the Director of Site Training. She serves on the Graduate Education Committee and Clinical Competency Committee and chairs the residency Wellness Task Force which has begun to identify structural challenges to wellness for both faculty and residents. She is an attending psychiatrist and Medical Director for the YNHH New Haven Adult Intensive Outpatient Program and Physician Lead for Ambulatory Services within the behavioral health service line for the Yale New Haven Hospital.
Wasser oversees the forensics experience and quality improvement and patient safety curriculum in the general adult residency and for the past four years has served as the Associate Program Director for the Public Psychiatry Fellowship. He will oversee the residency program's curriculum related to the ACGME competencies of Practice Based Learning and Systems Based Practice. He is the Chief Medical Officer of the Whiting Forensic Hospital.
Esperanza Diaz, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, and David Ross, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry are the residency's other Associate Program Directors.