1-AWP-Speakers

Dr. Amy Alexander is a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University, where she is the Director of the Student Mental Health Fellowship at Stanford. Nationally, she is involved in several collaborations in College Mental Health. She is the President and a founding member of the Association for College Psychiatry (AFCP), which supports students in higher education and develops best practices in college psychiatry.

She served as the Co-Chair of the APA (American Psychiatric Association) College Mental Health Caucus for 5 years and was the Chair of the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA). She also has expertise working with Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) patients and conducts research in AANHPI mental health. She is currently President- Elect of AWP.

Dr. Nikole Benders-Hadi is Vice President and Medical Director of Behavioral Health at Included Health, a national virtual care and healthcare navigation company. At Included, she leads the company’s behavioral health practice, focusing on patient experience, practice management, clinician recruitment, clinical support, and business development. Dr. Benders-Hadi earned her BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.

She completed her medical and residency training at New York University School of Medicine, after which she completed a fellowship in Public Psychiatry at Columbia University. She believes passionately in reducing mental health stigma and improving access to care for individuals across the entire spectrum of behavioral health conditions through the use of digital technology.

Richa Bhatia, MD is a dual Board Certified Child, Adolescent and Adult Psychiatrist, with extensive clinical experience treating patients suffering from a wide array of psychiatric conditions in community as well as academic settings. She serves as a 2022 APA mental health equity ambassador and as Secretary of the Association of Women Psychiatrists, in addition to serving as a Councilor for Northern California Psychiatric Society and as a member of the APA Council on Communications.

She has been involved in editorial work for psychiatry journals in her roles as an editorial board member of Current Psychiatry and as Section Editor for Current Opinion in Psychiatry. Her professional opinions have been quoted by CNBC, the Guardian, US News and World Report, the Wall Street Journal, and other media. Her other professional interests are integration of psychotherapy and psychopharmacology in clinical practice, anxiety disorders, psychodynamic psychotherapy, mindfulness based interventions, and compassion cultivation.

Juliet Beni Edgcomb, MD PhD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior. Her research focuses on the application of clinical informatics to improve detection, prediction, and prevention of childhood-onset mental illness.

She received a PhD in psychology from UC Riverside, attended the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and completed psychiatry residency at UCLA, where she served as program chief resident and cofounded
Women in Psychiatry. During fellowship, she received the Ritvo Fellow Award and Sorensen Foundation Fellowship, as well as research grants from the AFSP, APA Foundation, and Thrasher Research Fund, and she is a Steven, Sally, and Isabel Grimes Investigator through the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation NARSAD Research Partners Program.

This fall, Dr. Edgcomb received an NIMH K23 award to develop computable phenotypes and improve risk prediction modeling of suicidal behavior among children. She was recently one of four recipients nationally
of the Deeda Blair Research Initiative Award to apply semi- and weakly-supervised approaches to develop electronic health record phenotypes of high morbidity and mortality childhood-onset mental illnesses.

Leslie Hartley Gise MD, is a retired psychiatrist on Maui x 28 years, originally from New York City. She is a Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the John A Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii in Honolulu. She’s done academic CL, women’s mental health, private practice, community psychiatry, and disaster psychiatry. Leslie got involved with Disaster Psychiatry after September 11^th, 2001, and is involved with the Red Cross, Medical Reserve Corps, member of the APA Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster, and APA District Branch Disaster Representative. She has deployed on Maui, to Katrina in 2005, to the lava disaster on the Big Island of Hawaii in 2019, and to the island of Molokai.      

Leslie went to college at Bryn Mawr, medical school at Columbia, straight medical internship at Mount Sinai, psychiatric residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Consultation-Liaison Fellowship at Montefiore.        

She received the Bruno Lima Award for Disaster Psychiatry, the Resident-Fellow Member Mentor Award, the Alexandra Symonds Award, and the William “Bill” Richards Rural Psychiatry Award in 2005.     

Her hobbies are tennis, reading, advocacy, and travel, especially visiting her grandchildren in Brooklyn.

Nikki Goodsmith, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist and health services researcher at the VA Greater Los Angeles Medical Center and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. She completed joint MD-PhD degrees at Cornell University, with doctoral studies focused on Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis.

Her interests in public health and the social determinants of health eventually led her from infectious diseases to psychiatry, and from bench science to health services research. Following psychiatry residency at UCLA, she was a fellow in the UCLA/VA National Clinician Scholars Program, where she partnered with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health in qualitative research to improve attention to pregnancy and parenting within mental health care. She is currently supported by the AHRQ/PCORI Stakeholder-Partnered Implementation Research and Innovation Translation (SPIRIT) K12 program at UCLA. In both research and clinical work, she is focused on improving equity and health outcomes for vulnerable and historically marginalized populations, with a particular interest in women Veterans and women with serious mental illness.

Through research, teaching, and service, Dr. Gupta advocates for equity, wellness, and
collaboration. Her teaching focuses on physician-patient communication, culture and
medicine, wellness and professional identity formation. She is an Associate Member of
the GUMC Teaching Academy and a Cura Fellow.

Dr. Gupta serves as Lead of the GUMC Wellness Task Force, member of the Cura Georgetown Working Group, and Pod Leader for the Bias Reduction and Improvement Coaching Program. She is a
2021-2022 Gender*Justice Initiative Fellow for her research on The Experiences of
Women in Medicine which examines women’s experiences across different fields,
tracks, career choices, and settings.

In the community, she is a National Museum ofWomen in the Arts Board member, Children’s National Medical Center Advisory Board member, Girl Scouts wellness speaker, yoga teacher for WiM groups nationally, and
Editor for the Association of Women Psychiatrists. Her awards have included the Washington Psychiatric Society Community Service Award and the Dr. George U. Balis Award for Excellence in Medical Student Education.

Dr. Geetha Jayaram is a Professor of Psychiatry in the Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine, Public Health and Nursing. She is on the faculty of The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the APA. Her scholarship includes over 150 articles, abstracts, online teaching modules and book chapters. She has authored books on Women Psychiatrists and Patient Safety. She is the Past President of the Association of Women Psychiatrists, Past President of the American Association of Psychiatric Administrators, and the elected Chair of the Global Caucus.

Dr. Geetha is the Area 3 elected Trustee for the American Psychiatric Association. She has received national and international awards for her leadership, teaching and clinical service, and has been named ‘Best Doctor’ for almost 20 years in her area. She is elected to the American College of Psychiatrists and elected to the Johns Hopkins Distinguished Teacher’s Society, an honor given only to a handful each year. She had been the Chair of the Editorial Board for Psychiatric News. Dr. Geetha has directed both inpatient and outpatient services, winning the Psychiatric Services Gold Award for her clinic. Her community psychiatry work is recognized by the WHO.

In June 2015, she was awarded the prestigious Global Alumnus Service to Humanity Award by Rotary International at Sao Paulo, Brazil, given to only one person in the world; was recognized by the World Bank for International Women’s Day in 2018 for her efforts in psychiatry across the globe. Dr. Geetha was awarded the APA Administrative Psychiatry Award and the Kun Po Soo Award for her leadership/administrative work and promotion of Asian American Psychiatry. Dr. Geetha has been given the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Maryland Psychiatric Society.

Christina Khan, MD, PhD is a pediatric and adult psychiatrist and Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. Her doctoral and postdoctoral research training are in community and public health, including specialized training in global health and posttraumatic stress disorder research and treatment. Dr. Khan’s work over the last two decades has focused on addressing health disparities in historically underserved and marginalized populations in the United States and abroad.

At Stanford, she founded and directs THRIVE, Stanford’s LGBTQ+ Mental Health Clinic, and she is Co-Chief of the Diversity and Cultural Mental Health Section. She has been working with the Stanford WellConnect service for almost a decade addressing physician wellness, burnout, and trauma in physicians across the range of specialties and life experiences. Dr. Khan is a Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and serves on the CIGH Program Leadership Committee.

She has received numerous local and national awards for her scholarly work, advocacy, teaching and leadership, including most recently the 2023 Chairman’s Award for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the 2022 Excellence in Clinical Teaching Award from the graduating psychiatry residents. Dr. Khan is thrilled to be active in the Association of Women Psychiatrists since 2011 and serves as current President. She is a founding member of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s Women’s Committee, serves on the Council on Minority Mental Health and Health Disparities of the American Psychiatric Association, and she is a member of the APA/Centers for Disease Control Foundation Maternal Mental Health Advisory Panel.

Manal Khan is an adult and pediatric psychiatrist at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), where she received her child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship training. She completed her residency training at University of Washington, Seattle and was awarded the outstanding resident award. Dr. Khan served as the chief resident of wellness and recruitment during her residency training and as the inaugural justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) chief during her fellowship.

Currently Dr. Khan serves as the Deputy Representative of Minority and Under-Represented Groups at Southern California Psychiatric Society, co-chair of the IMG caucus at AACAP, and the chair of training and mentorship committee for Pakistani Association of Psychiatrists in North America. Dr. Khan is also the recipient of many honorary awards and fellowships such as the Laughlin, APsaA, AADPRT IMG, and APA Diversity Leadership fellowships.

Her areas of experience and interest include cultural psychiatry, immigrant mental health, psychotherapy, and anti-war advocacy. She believes strongly about bringing a JEDI lens to residency and fellowship training. She is a mother of two young boys who were born during training.

Dr. Newkirk currently serves as the Chief Psychiatric Officer for Wellpath. Dr. Newkirk practiced general and forensic psychiatry in Atlanta with faculty appointments at Emory University and Morehouse Schools of Medicine, and currently holds a voluntary faculty position at Florida International University and Morehouse School of Medicine.   Dr. Newkirk has been an advocate for the inclusion of correctional psychiatry as a part of the public psychiatry sector and has mentored several students and residents in this area throughout her career. She has also served as an expert witness in prison litigation and evolved an expertise in women’s issues in prison litigation.  She is one of the editors of Health Issues Among Incarcerated Women. 

Dr. Newkirk has held a variety of positions in professional organizations, including several committee memberships in the American Psychiatric Association.  She has served as president of the Florida Psychiatry Society, and the Georgia Psychiatric Physicians Association. She currently serves as an Assembly representative to the American Psychiatric Association from the state of Florida and is the Chair of the FPS Telemedicine Committee.  She received her bachelor’s degree from Duke University, her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a master’s degree in business administration with emphasis in healthcare management from Regis University. Dr. Newkirk was Chief Resident at Emory University School of Medicine and is board certified in general adult and Forensic psychiatry and is a member of AWP and a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. 

Silvia W. Olarte MD, an APA Distinguished Life Fellow, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Dynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis (AAPDPP). She is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the Psychoanalytic Institute at New York Medical College, Valhalla, New York. She has a psychodynamic private practice in New York City.

Dr. Olarte is a member of the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Dynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis and the Association of Women Psychiatrists. She has been president of the Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry and of the Association of Women Psychiatrists. She devoted a great part of her earlier career to serving the Latino deprived population in New York City at Metropolitan Hospital where she run the outpatient department before being the acting director of Psychiatry for three years. At the American Psychiatric Association (APA) she has been a member of the Committee of International Medical Graduates, the committee on Hispanics and the Committee on Women. She was chair of the task force on Educating Psychiatrists on Ethical Issues and Chair of the former Council on National Affairs.

She has been the recipient of the APA George Tarjan Award and the APA Alexandra Symonds Award. She has received the APA Special Presidential Commendation and twice, the AAPDPP Presidential Award. She has published on women’s issues, ethical issues, cross cultural psy chiatry, boundaries violations, personal disclosure in treatment, psychodynamic treatment of deprived populations, and changes in psychodynamic practices.

Patricia Isbell Ordorica, MD is Past President of the Association of Women Psychiatrists. A nationally known expert in Addiction Psychiatry, Dr. Ordorica has served multiple terms as Chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Addiction Psychiatry and served on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

She is the recipient of numerous awards including the American Psychiatric Association’s Jeanne M. Spurlock M.D. Minority Fellowship Alumni Achievement Award and the Association of Women Psychiatrist’s Jeanne M. Spurlock Social Justice Award.

Dr. Ordorica currently serves women and LGBTQI+ individuals incarcerated in the state of California. Guided by the social justice advocacy which has been the guiding principle of her career Dr. Ordorica seeks to bring dignity, hope and the highest quality of psychiatric care to all those she serves.

Misty Richards, MD, MS is the Director of Infant Mental Health of the UCLA Maternal Mental Health Program. She is the Co-Founder and Medical Director of Perinatal Psychiatry for the Maternal Outpatient Mental Health Services (MOMS) Clinic in the Department of OB-GYN, where she treats patients with perinatal mood disorders, anxiety, and psychosis while educating the next generation about reproductive psychiatry.

She is a child, adult, and reproductive psychiatrist at UCLA who holds a joint appointment in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is double board-certified in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry and specializes in infant mental health, with recent completion of the NAPA Parent-Infant Mental Health Fellowship. Dr. Richards also serves as the Program Director for the UCLA Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship and is highly involved in medical student education as a Core Faculty Educator in the Scientific Foundations of Medicine for the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

Suzan J. Song, MD, MPH, PhD is the Director of Global Child and Family Mental Health at Boston Children’s Hospital/ Harvard as well as a humanitarian MHPSS adviser to UNICEF. She is also Professor of Psychiatry at the George Washington University, where she was the Director of the Division of Child/Adolescent & Family Psychiatry.

She combines clinical care, research, and policy to serve children and families of torture, trafficking, hostage and forced displacement. Her two decades of global mental work span Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia, KwaZulu/Natal, Haiti, Burundi, Syria/Jordan, the DRC, Ukraine with humanitarian agencies such as the UN Refugee Agency, International Medical Corps and works domestically as adviser to the U.S. State Department.

She earned the Catcher in the Rye Humanitarian Award from AACAP in 2021 for her work with unaccompanied minors in detention centers and she has provided multiple congressional briefings. Her book, Child and Adolescent Refugee Mental Health: A Global Perspective, was co-edited with the senior mental health adviser of the U.N. Refugee Agency and she has a book forthcoming with Penguin Random House.

Altha J. Stewart, MD is Senior Associate Dean for Community Health Engagement, Director, Public and Community Psychiatry, and Director, Center for Youth Advocacy and Well-Being at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis. In the College of Medicine, she works to promote increased engagement with the community related to improving overall health and well-being for all residents and reducing health disparities. Her Center for Youth Advocacy and Well-Being is recognized statewide as a leader in work to reduce out of home and community placements for youth with untreated mental illness and trauma-related issues.

She leads the department of psychiatry’s efforts to create a community psychiatry fellowship program to expand the local behavioral health workforce, including increasing the number of family support specialists to assist youth and their families in navigating the child-serving system of care. A graduate of Temple University Medical School, she completed residency at Drexel University, and has led large public mental health systems in Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan over her almost 40-year career.

Dr. Stewart is currently president of the American Association for Community Psychiatry. This followed her historic election in 2017 as the 145th President of the American Psychiatric Association, where she was the first African American ever elected as president in the 175-year history of the organization. She is also past president of the Black Psychiatrists of America, Association of Women Psychiatrists, and American Psychiatric Foundation.

LCDR Madeline Teisberg is Active Duty United States Navy Officer and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, School of Medicine and faculty for the National Capital Consortium Psychiatry Residency at Walter Reed. She is the co-president of the Military & Veteran AMWA chapter.  She also serves as a scientist with the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress. Her primary role is teaching pre-clerkship students as Co-Director of the Neuroscience Module for first year medical students. She teaches all levels of medical students and psychiatry residents at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital.  

LCDR Teisberg joined the Navy in November 2010 as part of the Health Professions Scholarship Program. She attended medical school at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. Internship and Residency in Psychiatry were completed with the National Capital Consortium at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. She served as the Deputy and then chief resident 2016-2018. She was stationed in Sasebo, Japan as an Expeditionary Psychiatrist with Expeditionary Strike Force Seven and Phibron Eleven, she spent over 300 days at sea in support for PACFLT operations between 2018-2020. In OCT 2020 LCDR Teisberg transferred to the Uniformed Services University, where she now conducts research on biofeedback apps for emotional regulation, teaches all levels of medical students and psychiatry residents and sees patients.

LCDR Teisberg was selected for the American Psychiatric Association Public Psychiatry Fellowship 2016-2018, when she also served on the APA Communications Council. In 2018 she was appointed to the Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disasters and continues to serve there. She is the current American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA) Military and Veteran Chapter President (2021-2023). LCDR Teisberg has worked with the Defense Institute for Medical Operations (DIMO) on multiple missions to Mexico, collaborating with their Army and Navy while engaged with the Military, Disaster and Trauma Mental Health course.

Dr. Esther Teverovsky is the director of the clinical geriatric psychiatry fellowship at University of Pittsburgh. Her research interests include epidemiology of mild cognitive impairment and clinician education.

Dr. Teverovsky takes great satisfaction in tackling complex patient situations alongside her residents and fellows. When not at work, Dr. Teverovsky enjoys being active at synagogue, watercolor, and spending time with her children.