Walter Kaye, MD
Founder & Executive Director, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Professor, UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry
Dr. Walter Kaye was recruited to the UC San Diego faculty from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he was research director of the eating disorder program, and where he received a NIMH senior scientist award.
Dr. Kaye’s current research is focused on exploring the relationship between brain and behavior using brain imaging and genetics, and developing and applying new treatments for anorexia and bulimia nervosa. He is the principal investigator for an international, multi-site collaboration on the genetics of anorexia and bulimia nervosa. He has an international reputation in the field of eating disorders and is the author of more than 300 articles and publications. He attended Ohio State Medical School, trained in neurology at the University of Southern California and trained in psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Kaye was then a fellow and research physician at the National Institute of Mental Health for seven years where he conducted research on appetite regulation, behavior and treatment for disorders.
As Director of the University of California, San Diego Eating Disorder Treatment and Research Program, Dr. Kaye and his clinical team are treating anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders with an innovative, intensive program that approaches the problem on multiple levels, including medical, psychological, psycho-educational and counseling of the family as key support group.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Walter Kaye, MD
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Founder & Executive Director, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Professor, UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry
Ivan Eisler, PhD
Joint Head of Child & Adolescent Eating Disorders Service, Maudsley Hospital Emeritus
Professor of Family Psychology and Family Therapy, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
Dr. Ivan Eisler is a Professor of Family Psychology and Family Therapy at Kings College London and the Joint Head of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service’s Eating Disorders Service. Dr. Eisler has been training providers in the provision of family therapy for over 35 years and is the principal architect of Maudsley Family Therapy for adolescents with anorexia nervosa. Dr. Eisler’s research has focused on the development and evaluation of psychological treatments with an emphasis on family therapy for eating disorders. His publications on his work are widely acknowledged as the evidence base for child and adolescent eating disorder treatment by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence in the UK and other countries.
About Ivan Eisler, PhD
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Joint Head of Child & Adolescent Eating Disorders Service, Maudsley Hospital Emeritus
Professor of Family Psychology and Family Therapy, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London
Mima Simic, MD, MSc, MRCPsych
Joint Head, Maudsley Centre for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation
Joint Head of the Maudsley Centre for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders and Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation. She led the development of intensive treatment programmes for eating disorders that offer an integrative approach combining family therapy, multi-family therapy, Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and Radical Openness for adolescent (RO-A) therapy interventions. She has also contributed to research studies ranging from neuroimaging studies of adolescent depression and anorexia nervosa to testing manualised treatments in eating disorders and self-harm.
About Mima Simic, MD, MSc, MRCPsych
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Joint Head, Maudsley Centre for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders
Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation
Daniel Le Grange, PhD, FAED
Benioff UCSF Professor in Children's Health, and Director, Eating Disorders Program
Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience
University of California, San Francisco
Daniel Le Grange, PhD, holds a Distinguished Professorship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he is Benioff UCSF Professor in Children’s Health in the Department of Psychiatry UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences, and Director of the Eating Disorders Program in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Dr. Le Grange also is Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at The University of Chicago. He received his doctoral education at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Maudsley Hospital, the University of London, and completed postdoctoral training at the University of London and the Maudsley Hospital, and at Stanford University School of Medicine, California. Dr. Le Grange’s research interests focuses primarily on treatment trials for adolescents with eating disorders. He has authored or co-authored more than 500 manuscripts, books, book chapters, and abstracts, and presented his work at more than 200 national and international scientific meetings. His focused scholarship has been translated into Chinese, Dutch, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish. Dr. Le Grange is a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, a Member of the Eating Disorders Research Society, Past Associate Editor for BMC Psychiatry, Associate Editor for the Journal of Eating Disorders and the European Eating Disorders Review, and Editorial Board Member for the International Journal of Eating Disorders, Eating Behaviors, and the The Italian Journal of Eating Disorders and Obesity. He has lectured extensively across North America, Europe, Australia, South East Asia, and South Africa. Over the past 15 years, Dr. Le Grange has been Principal Investigator on numerous randomized clinical trials funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (United States), the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia), and private foundations (United States and Australia). Dr. Le Grange is the 2013 recipient of the UCSF Presidential Chair Award, the 2014 recipient of the Academy for Eating Disorders Leadership in Research Award, and the 2017 recipient of the Eating Disorder Recovery Support Hall of Fame Award for Research.
About Daniel Le Grange, PhD, FAED
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Benioff UCSF Professor in Children's Health, and Director, Eating Disorders Program
Department of Psychiatry, UCSF Weill Institute for Neuroscience
University of California, San Francisco
Jennifer Thomas, PhD
Co-Director, Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Jennifer Thomas is the Co-director of the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, and an Associate Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Thomas’s research focuses on atypical eating disorders, as described in her books Almost Anorexic: Is My (or My Loved One’s) Relationship with Food a Problem? and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder: Children, Adolescents, and Adults. She is currently principal investigator on several studies investigating the neurobiology and treatment of avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health and private foundations. She is the author or co-author of more than 100 scientific publications. She also serves as Secretary for the Academy for Eating Disorders and Associate Editor for the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
About Jennifer Thomas, PhD
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Co-Director, Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
Associate Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Laura Berner, PhD
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Eating and Weight Disorders Center of Excellence, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Dr. Laura Berner is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Eating and Weight Disorders Center of Excellence in the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She earned her PhD from Drexel University and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research. She is a clinical psychologist interested in how cognitive neuroscience can help us understand and treat cycles of binge eating, purging, and restricted eating. To this end, her research combines innovative behavioral tasks with structural and functional brain imaging, computational modeling approaches, and self-report and laboratory-based symptom measures. Dr. Berner’s ultimate goals are to build new explanatory models of eating disorders, identify predictors of outcome, and translate research findings to tools for clinical decision-making and novel interventions. Her research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Hilda and Preston Davis Foundation, the American Psychological Association, and the Academy for Eating Disorders. In addition, Dr. Berner has over a decade of experience assessing and treating adolescents and adults with eating disorders at all levels of care. She is trained in dialectical behavior therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, cognitive processing therapy, family-based treatment, and traditional and enhanced cognitive behavioral therapy for eating disorders, personality disorders, mood and anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
About Laura Berner, PhD
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Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Eating and Weight Disorders Center of Excellence, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Laura Hill, PhD, FAED, LLC
Eating Disorder Consultant
Dr. Laura Hill is an international Eating Disorder Consultant focusing on Temperament-Based Therapy with Supports (TBT-S) clinical trainings and research. In addition, she is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at The Ohio State University.
Dr. Hill is the author of the E-Text, “A Brain-Based Approach to Eating Disorder Treatment. She has researched and published on eating disorders since the early 1980’s with increasing focus on the integration of brain-based research into eating disorder treatment. She is a co-developer of TBT-S with Walter Kaye, MD, Christina Wierenga, PhD and Stephanie Knatz, PhD at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD); & is a co-recipient of the Feeding Hope Grant by the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) in 2014.
Dr. Hill is an original founder of the Academy for Eating Disorders in 1993 and was Director of The National Eating Disorder Organization, now known as NEDA (National Eating Disorders Association), from 1990 to 1994. In addition she was the founder, President & Chief Executive Office of The Center for Balanced Living from 2000 to 2017.
Dr. Hill is the recipient of the Muskingum University Distinguished Service Award in 2014 and the NEDA 2011 Lori Irving Award for Excellence in Eating Disorders Prevention and Awareness. She was a 2012 TEDx speaker, titled “Eating Disorders from the Inside Out” and has spoken internationally for over 35 years.
About Laura Hill, PhD, FAED, LLC
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Eating Disorder Consultant
Milton Brown, PhD
Director, DBT Center of San Diego
Dr. Brown is the director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy Center of San Diego. He received intensive DBT training as a doctoral student and postdoctoral fellow of Marsha Linehan, and completed his clinical internship at the Veteran Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Since 2004, he has taught graduate classes on cognitive behavioral therapies and DBT at Alliant International University. He has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on DBT, borderline personality disorder, emotion regulation, suicidality, self-injury, shame, and self-hatred.
About Milton Brown, PhD
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Director, DBT Center of San Diego
Kendra Becker, PhD
Staff Psychologist, Eating Disorder Clinical and Research Program
Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School
Dr. Kendra R. Becker is a staff psychologist at the Eating Disorder Clinical and Research Program at the Massachusetts General Hospital and an Instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She is a co-author of more than 30 scientific publications and her primary research interests include exploring emotional and personality influences on eating behaviors as well as investigating neurological, hormonal, and behavioral differences among individuals with low weight eating disorders. She is funded by the U.S. National Institute of Mental health and private foundations. She is currently a principal investigator exploring long-term aggregated cortisol as a biological marker of restrictive eating and predictor of symptoms trajectory, hormone and brain changes following cognitive-behavioral therapy for avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID), and neurobiological underpinnings of reward functioning in low-weight ARFID compared to anorexia nervosa.
About Kendra Becker, PhD
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Staff Psychologist, Eating Disorder Clinical and Research Program
Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School
Diane Mickley, MD, FACP, FAED
Director
Wilkins Center
Dr. Diane Mickley is the founder and director of Wilkins Center for Eating Disorders, in Greenwich CT. Opened in 1982, it was among the first multidisciplinary outpatient treatment centers for patients with eating disorders and continues to provide evidence-based care. Dr. Mickley also founded Greenwich DBT as well as Greenwich Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, both of which provide outpatient services.
Dr. Mickley is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of Yale School of Medicine, holds Emeritus status in the Department of Medicine of Greenwich Hospital, and served as an eating disorder consultant on the staff of Silver Hill Hospital, in New Canaan CT. She received a BA Magna cum Laude from Vassar College and her MD from Tufts University School of Medicine, with post-doctoral training at Montefiore Hospital, Bronx NY, Barnes Hospital, St Louis MO, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx NY. She is a Diplomate of the Board of Internal Medicine.
Nationally, Dr. Mickley is a Founding Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders and served on their Board of Directors. She served as president of the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association and as co-president of the National Eating Disorders Association, as well as many years on both boards. She is a co-founder of the Global Foundation for Eating Disorders and currently chairs their Board of Directors.
Dr. Mickley’s research collaborations have included studies with colleagues at Yale, Harvard and Columbia. She has over 40 professional publications.
Dr. Mickley has been recognized with the Academy for Eating Disorders Clinician of the Year Award, the National Eating Disorders Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the Woman of Inspiration Award of the American Anorexia and Bulimia Association, and the Brava Award of the Greenwich YWCA.
Dr. Mickley lives in Greenwich CT with her husband, also a physician, Dr. Steven Mickley. They are the parents of 4 children and the grandparents of 5.
About Diane Mickley, MD, FACP, FAED
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Director
Wilkins Center
Trevor Steward, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia
My work with mental illness began when I was a research assistant at UCLA coordinating randomized clinical trails to identify potential pharmaceutical interventions for methamphetamine dependence. This experience helped me realize that brain-based interventions were direly needed to advance the field and led me to pursue a career in neuroscience. As a PhD researcher in a public hospital setting in Barcelona, Spain, I led functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in patients with eating disorders and obesity, while also obtaining hands-on experience with diverse psychiatric patient populations. My predoctoral training was focused on utilizing different neuroimaging tools to examine the neural correlates of altered emotion regulation and decision making in patients with anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and obesity. During this time, I also conducted research on neuropsychological functioning in patients with behavioral addictions, such as gambling disorder, and on whether these factors could serve as predictors of treatment outcome.
In April 2019, I began a position as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne as part of a partnership between the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences and the Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre. My research program is focused on harnessing the untapped potential of ultra high-field 7T MRI technology to understand the role of thalamic and midbrain nuclei in transdiagnostic psychopathology, namely repetitive negative thinking and attentional biases. My goal for the next stage of career is to gain proficiency in advanced computational methods to identify scalable targets for brain-based inventions that span multiple disorders. Despite my early career stage, I am the co-author of over 50 publications and 4 chapters. I was recently awarded the highly competitive McKenzie Fellowship and am a recipient of the Academy of Eating Disorders (AED) Early Career Award.
About Trevor Steward, PhD
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Christina Scharmer, MA
Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology
University at Albany, State University of New York
Christina Scharmer, M.A., is a fourth year doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY), mentored by Dr. Drew Anderson. Prior to beginning graduate school, Christina helped to provide clinical care for individuals with eating disorders at the Emily Program’s Anna Westin House, a residential eating disorder treatment center. She has also worked with eating disorder clients in intensive outpatient and outpatient treatment settings throughout her graduate training. Christina’s research interests focus on factors that impact eating disorder treatment and specifically, the identification and treatment of problematic exercise behaviors. Christina is currently conducting research examining factors that distinguish problematic and adaptive exercise behaviors and shared characteristics between problematic exercise and anxiety disorders.
About Christina Scharmer, MA
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Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology
University at Albany, State University of New York
Shirley Wang, MA
PhD Candidate
Department of Psychology, Harvard University
Shirley Wang is a Ph.D. candidate in clinical psychology with a secondary field in computational science and engineering at Harvard University, where she is funded by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. She works with Dr. Matthew Nock at Harvard and Drs. Jennifer Thomas and Kamryn Eddy at Massachusetts General Hospital. Shirley’s research aims to improve the understanding of why people engage in behaviors that are harmful to themselves, including eating disorder behaviors, self-injury, and suicide. She uses a wide range of methodologies to study these problems (real-time monitoring, large-scale longitudinal studies, laboratory-based experiments), with a focus on data-driven computational approaches such as machine learning. She is also particularly interested in using mathematical and computational modeling to formalize psychological theories. Shirley has published over 25 scientific papers and developed an R package for taxometric analysis available on CRAN. This work has recognized through several awards, including the 2018 Early Graduate Student Researcher Award from the American Psychological Association and the 2019 President’s Award from the Society for Research in Psychopathology. Shirley serves on the editorial boards of Eating and Weight Disorders and Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention. At Harvard, Shirley is currently a teaching fellow for an undergraduate course on statistics for the behavioral sciences.
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About Shirley Wang, MA
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PhD Candidate
Department of Psychology, Harvard University
Elizabeth Dougherty, MS
Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology
Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Psychology
Elizabeth Dougherty is a fifth-year student in the Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program at Illinois Institute of Technology. She conducts research in Alissa Haedt-Matt’s Eating Behaviors Laboratory. Her research focuses on identifying mechanisms associated with the maintenance of eating disorders and the co-occurrence between eating disorders and anxiety disorders. She has experience providing eating disorder treatment in outpatient settings and conducting psychosocial evaluations for bariatric surgery.
About Elizabeth Dougherty, MS
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Doctoral Candidate in Clinical Psychology
Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Psychology
Rachel Lapidus, MA
Doctoral Candidate, Clinical Psychology
The University of Tulsa
Rachel Lapidus is a fifth-year doctoral candidate at the University of Tulsa and the Laureate Institute for Brain Research. She is passionate about improving mental health care for individuals with eating disorders through development of innovative treatments informed by neurobiology. Currently her research focuses on identifying deficits in interoceptive processing in eating disorders and how these abnormalities may be addressed to improve treatment response.
About Rachel Lapidus, MA
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Doctoral Candidate, Clinical Psychology
The University of Tulsa
Helen Burton Murray, MS
Psychology and Clinical Research Fellow
Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
I am a Clinical and Research Fellow in Psychology at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital in the Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program and the Gastroenterology Division. My clinical research focuses on improving the detection and treatment of symptom presentations that overlap among feeding, eating, and gastrointestinal disorders. I have expertise with evidence-based treatments for feeding and eating disorders, including a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for rumination disorder/syndrome.
About Helen Burton Murray, MS
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Psychology and Clinical Research Fellow
Eating Disorders Clinical and Research Program, Massachusetts General Hospital
Kay Rhee, MD, MSc, MA
Medical Director, Medical Behavioral Unit, Rady's Children Hospital of San Diego
Medical Director, Center for Healthy Eating and Activity Research, UC San Diego
Dr. Rhee is a board certified pediatrician with 12 years of experience as a pediatric hospitalist and inpatient medicine. She moved to UC San Diego in 2010 and is currently the Medial Director of the Medical Behavioral Unit at Rady Children’s Hospital of San Diego. She coordinates care for children transitioning between the inpatient and outpatient eating disorder treatment programs and provides medical consultation to children and families in the outpatient programs. In addition to her medical training, she received a Master in Sociology at Stanford University, and Master in Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. She has multidisciplinary training in family based behavioral therapy, parenting training, and motivational interviewing. She conducts research with overweight and underweight children and studies the role of parents in treatment outcomes. She is also beginning to study the interplay between genetics, gut microbiome, and behaviors in overweight and underweight children.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Kay Rhee, MD, MSc, MA
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Medical Director, Medical Behavioral Unit, Rady's Children Hospital of San Diego
Medical Director, Center for Healthy Eating and Activity Research, UC San Diego
Angela Fish, RD
Pediatric Clinical Dietitian, Rady Children's Hospital
Angela Fish, RD is a pediatric dietitian on the Medical Behavioral Unit at Rady Children’s Hospital- San Diego. Angela specializes in inpatient nutritional rehabilitation of patients with eating disorders and nutrition support. She is a preceptor for several dietetic internships and has a special interest in the education and training of dietetic interns. Angela also works as a research coordinator/interventionist for the UCSD Center for Healthy Eating and Activity Research. Angela earned her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nutrition at Syracuse University in 2012. She completed her Dietetic Internship at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC.
About Angela Fish, RD
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Pediatric Clinical Dietitian, Rady Children's Hospital
Heather Hower, MSW, LICSW, QCSW, ACSW
Project Director, Brown University
Faculty Research Associate, Hassenfeld Child Innovation Institute
Faculty Associate Specialist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Heather Hower, MSW, LICSW, ACSW, QCSW, serves as a Project Director and Faculty Research Associate at Brown University, Warren Alpert Medical School and School of Public Health, and a Faculty Associate Specialist at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research. She is on the Board of the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), including Conference Committee Co-Chair and Research Advisory Council (RAC), is an eating disorders grant reviewer for the Department of Defense (DOD), a Faculty Member and conference presenter at Academy for Eating Disorders (AED), a conference proposal reviewer for the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals (IAEDP), a manuscript reviewer for the International Journal of Eating Disorders (IJED), an advocate for the Eating Disorder Coalition (EDC), a research assistant for Jenni Schaefer’s forthcoming book, and a writer of eating disorder blogs for NEDA, Jenni Schaefer, Project HEAL, and Medium. Heather’s current research interests include capitalizing on eating disorder traits as strengths, promoting temperament-based treatments, and defining recovery.
About Heather Hower, MSW, LICSW, QCSW, ACSW
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Project Director, Brown University
Faculty Research Associate, Hassenfeld Child Innovation Institute
Faculty Associate Specialist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Stephanie Knatz-Peck, PhD
Assistant Clinical Professor, UC San Diego
Director of Intensive Family Therapy Programs, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Stephanie Knatz Peck is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). She serves as Director of the Intensive Family Treatment Programs (IFT), which are internationally recognized Temperament-Based Treatment (TBT-S) programs for adolescents and young adults and their family members. She has overseen the development and implementation of the Temperament-Based Treatment (TBT-S) approaches for adolescents and young adults at UCSD in collaboration with Dr.’s Laura Hill and Christina Wierenga. Her recent work is focused on developing and testing novel interventions targeting temperament and neurobiology in a variety of clinical formats and developing an intensive temperament-based, multi-family treatment approach designed specifically for young adults. She continues to oversee the adolescent IFT program, an internationally-recognized, evidence-based treatment program for adolescents and their families.
Dr. Peck’s is an expert in family-supported treatments and multi-family treatment approaches. For the past 4 years, Dr. Peck has regularly conducted intensive trainings focused on novel family-supported treatments through the UCSD Eating Disorder Center’s Training Institute, at international conferences such as the International Conference of Eating Disorders (ICED), and at local hospitals and institutions alongside world-renowned eating disorder experts. She also provides ongoing training for post-doctoral fellows, residents and medical students through UCSD.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Stephanie Knatz-Peck, PhD
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Assistant Clinical Professor, UC San Diego
Director of Intensive Family Therapy Programs, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Christina Wierenga, PhD
Associate Professor, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Co-Director of Research, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Wierenga is an Associate Professor, Clinical Neuropsychologist and Co-Director of the Research Program at the UCSD Eating Disorders Center. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Neuropsychology, Neurorehabilitation, and Clinical Neuroscience from the University of Florida and completed an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at UCSD in Biological Psychiatry and Neuroscience. She is an expert in the neurobiology of eating disorders, in particular related to the neural circuitry supporting cognition and behavior. She conducts neuroimaging and neuropsychological research examining the brain basis of disordered eating, with an emphasis on key constructs that contribute to altered motivation to eat, including cognitive control, reward processing, learning, and interoception. She is also heavily involved in treatment development efforts for eating disorders guided by a neurobiological understanding of temperament-based behavior, as well as treatment outcome studies. Through close collaboration with Drs. Peck and Hill, she has developed and continues to test a Temperament-Based Treatment with Supports (TBT-S) approach for adolescents and adults with eating disorders, which is frequently delivered in an intensive 5-day multi-family format. Dr. Wierenga is a CA licensed Clinical Psychologist and supervises clinical trainees in the Adolescent Eating Disorders Program and primarily uses FBT, DBT, and CBT. She also conducts neuropsychological assessments in both the Adolescent and Adult Programs. She has published over 80 peer-reviewed papers, has been funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIMH, NIDDK), National Eating Disorders Association, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Alzheimer’s Association, and serves in leadership roles within the Academy of Eating Disorders.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Christina Wierenga, PhD
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Associate Professor, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Co-Director of Research, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Leslie Anderson, PhD
Associate Professor, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Training Director, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Leslie Karwoski Anderson is a clinical associate professor, training director at UCSD Eating Disorders Center, and DBT- Linehan Board of Certification, Certified Clinician™. She has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Kansas, and completed her clinical internship at Duke University Medical Center. Before coming to UCSD, she held a clinical faculty appointment at the University of Washington, was a supervisor in Marsha Linehan's DBT training clinic, and was a staff psychologist at the DBT Center of Seattle. She currently oversees the training and clinical supervision of the UCSD EDC staff, and conducts individual, family and group therapy for anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder and EDNOS. Her research interests are in treatment development, evaluation, and outcomes, especially with regards to adaptations of DBT and FBT, and she has published many journal articles and two books in this area (including the newly released Clinical Handbook of Complex and Atypical Eating Disorders). She frequently gives talks and workshops on DBT, eating disorders, suicidality, and related topics in the community and at national conferences. She has served in several leadership roles within the Academy of Eating Disorders, and is the co-editor of Eating Disorders: The Journal of Treatment and Prevention.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Leslie Anderson, PhD
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Associate Professor, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Training Director, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Anne Cusack, PsyD
Adult Program Manager, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Anne Cusack is a clinical psychologist at the UCSD Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research and co-manages the Adult Treatment Program. As a graduate from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, she completed her pre-doctoral internship at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital working with various psychiatric populations. Clinically, she has worked as a therapist on a research trial of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for eating disorders at the University of Chicago, as well as provided treatment of eating disorders, mood disorders, substance use disorder, PTSD, complicated grief and personality disorders in inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient settings. She specializes in DBT and Prolonged Exposure therapy. She is currently the Academy for Eating Disorders co-chair for the DBT special interest group. Her research interests include treatment development, acceptance, mindfulness, emotion regulation, suicidality, and self-injurious behaviors. Anne previously worked in the Adolescent Program and currently provides individual, group and family therapy for the Adult Day Treatment and Intensive Outpatient Programs. When she’s not at work, Anne loves traveling, adventuring and playing with the cutest puppy in San Diego!
About Anne Cusack, PsyD
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Adult Program Manager, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Julianna Gorder, PsyD
Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Julianna Gorder is a postdoctoral fellow at UCSD Eating Disorders Center. Dr. Gorder earned her Psy.D. from The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and has extensive experience treating individuals of all ages with eating disorders at all levels of care. Prior to coming to UCSD, she received specialized training in the treatment of eating disorders at Eating Recovery Center of Chicago and the Eating Disorders Program at University of Chicago. Dr. Gorder also has experience working with general and forensic populations of children, adolescents, and young adults within an inpatient behavioral health hospital. Dr. Gorder has training in DBT, CBT, FBT, and ACT, and is particularly passionate about Radically Open (RO) DBT, a treatment for disorders of overcontrol. Dr. Gorder completed her two-week intensive training in RO DBT with treatment developer, Tom Lynch, and has experience administering RO DBT for eating disorders within residential through outpatient levels of care. She has also served as an officer on the RO DBT Student Board since 2017. Her research interests include defining eating disorder recovery, the impacts of trauma on eating disorders, as well as the impact of biotemperament and emotion regulation style on eating disorder presentation.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Julianna Gorder, PsyD
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Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Emily Gray, MD
Medical Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Programs, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Emily Gray M.D. is the medical director of the Pediatric and Adolescent Eating Disorder Program at the UCSD Eating Disorder Center for Treatment and Research and an Assistant Clinical Professor at the UCSD School of Medicine. She is board certified in adult and child/adolescent psychiatry and completed her undergraduate, medical school, and adult psychiatry residency training at the University of California, San Diego. She received specialty training in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)/McLean Hospital and after graduating, became faculty at Harvard Medical School with an appointment at MGH where she specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, child and adolescent psychiatry, and the overlap between psychiatric conditions and gastroenterology.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Emily Gray, MD
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Medical Director of Pediatric and Adolescent Programs, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Guido Frank, MD
Co-Director of Research, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Treatment & Research Program
Guido K. W. Frank, M.D., is a clinician-researcher who uses functional brain imaging to better integrate research and clinical work. His goal is to develop better treatments for eating disorders based on this research. Dr. Frank is board certified in adult as well as child and adolescent psychiatry. In addition, he received extensive training in biological brain research as well as formal training in psychotherapy. He has been NIMH funded since 2008. His combination of clinical and research training gives him a unique perspective on psychiatric disorders, fostering an evidence and neuroscience-based approach to treatment.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Guido Frank, MD
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Co-Director of Research, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Treatment & Research Program
Jessie Menzel, PhD
Director of Pediatric Services, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Jessie Menzel is an assistant clinical professor in the department of psychiatry at UCSD and the founder of the pediatric program at the UCSD Eating Disorder Center for Treatment and Research. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of South Florida and completed her internship at UCSD and the San Diego VA Healthcare System. Dr. Menzel has extensive treatment experience working with children, adolescents, and adults with eating disorders at all levels of care. She has specialized training experiences in family-based therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, motivational interviewing, and exposure and response prevention for OCD and other anxiety disorders. Dr. Menzel has published research in the fields of eating and anxiety disorders and her current research interests are in the development of innovative treatments for Avoidant-Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID). Dr. Menzel provides individual, family, and group therapy at the Pediatric Program.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Jessie Menzel, PhD
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Director of Pediatric Services, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Mary Ellen Trunko, MD
Medical Director, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Associate Clinical Professor, UCSD Department of Psychiatry
Dr. Mary Ellen Trunko has worked with the UCSD eating disorders program since its inception, and has been involved in planning and development of services, delivery of patient care, and supervision and teaching of junior staff members. As associate clinical professor and medical director, Dr. Trunko performs comprehensive psychiatric evaluations, handles medication management, coordinates primary care and other medical services, and educates patients and their families on physiological, medical and psychological aspects of eating disorders. She also runs an outpatient practice that includes individuals with eating disorders as well as those with general psychiatric needs.
Dr. Trunko is board certified in both psychiatry and internal medicine, an unusual combination that is highly relevant to the understanding and treatment of eating disorders. She has used this specialty knowledge to advise primary care providers on the care of eating-disordered patients through presentations and consultation. She has written review papers and clinical case reports on pharmacological interventions for eating disorders. Dr. Trunko earned her MD degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, and completed separate residencies in internal medicine and psychiatry at UCSD.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Mary Ellen Trunko, MD
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Medical Director, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Associate Clinical Professor, UCSD Department of Psychiatry
Roxanne Rockwell, PhD
Director of Adolescent Services, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Dr. Roxanne Rockwell is an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the UC San Diego Adolescent Eating Disorders Service. She has experience in the treatment, evaluation and research of eating disorders and obesity since 1999. She was one of the founding members of the UCSD Eating Disorders Program in 2005, and has been integrally involved in its development and expansion. Dr. Rockwell played a primary role in devising and building the innovative individual and multi-family Intensive Family Therapy (IFT) programs and the adolescent and young adult day treatment and intensive outpatient programs. As a certified Family Based (i.e., “Maudsley”) Therapist, she served as the IFT program director for several years, and currently provides training and supervision in this modality for staff and faculty. She founded the UC San Diego Parent Advisory Council (PAC) in 2012 and continues to develop this important service. Dr. Rockwell graduated from the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University, and completed pre-doctoral internship at Rady Children’s Outpatient Psychiatry which involved working with children and families dealing with various psychiatric illnesses. Her clinical and research work focuses primarily on eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder) and weight management issues. She serves as a LEAD Fellow and Diversity Champion for the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at UC San Diego.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
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Director of Adolescent Services, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Tammy Maginot, PhD
Pediatric Psychologist, Behavioral Medicine Program Director, Rady Children's Hospital of San Diego/UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Tamara Maginot “Tammy” works at the Medical Behavioral Unit at Rady Children's Hospital/ UCSD Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research Program. Tammy has her Ph.D. in clinical psychology with an emphasis in pediatric health from the California School of Professional Psychology. Tammy completed her clinical internship at Sharp Healthcare in San Diego and completed her doctoral dissertation on the effect of weight on elementary school aged children’s social competence. Tammy’s clinical and research interests include working with children and adolescents managing chronic medical conditions, trauma-informed care, family-based treatment of obesity and eating disorders, and medical stabilization of eating disorders.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
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Pediatric Psychologist, Behavioral Medicine Program Director, Rady Children's Hospital of San Diego/UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Terry Schwartz, MD
Director of Medical & Clinical Services, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Terry Schwartz is the Clinical Director of the UCSD Eating Disorders Programs. She has over 15 years of extensive experience in working with eating disorders, as well as providing Eating Disorders treatment trainings at multiple university and county facilities. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the UCSD Medical School. From 1997 through 2005, she served as Associate Medical Director at UCSD Outpatient Psychiatric Services, and Medical Director for the UCSD Co-Occurring Disorders Program. She continues to be actively involved in the training of psychiatry residents, psychology interns, and other trainees. From 1999-2004, she served as chairman of the San Diego County Mental Health “Psychopharmacology of Co-Occurring Disorders” Committee. She received her MD from the University of California, San Diego, in 1993, and completed her residency in psychiatry at UCSD.
She has been named by San Diego Magazine (voted by peers) as one of the Top Doctors in San Diego.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
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Director of Medical & Clinical Services, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Christine Costello, MSW, YA RYT 200
Milieu and Program Therapist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Christine is a Milieu and Program Therapist at the UCSD Eating Disorder Center for Treatment and Research, providing group, individual, and family therapy in the Adult Treatment program. Christine graduated with her Master's in Social Work from the University of Southern California after receiving her BA in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. She previously provided group, individual, and family therapy at both school and after-school settings, working with underserved, at-risk populations. Christine has specialized training in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction and Mindful Self-Compassion and is a registered yoga instructor (RYT 200). She is passionate about the benefits individuals can derive from the intersection between mindfulness and mental health. Outside of her own yoga and mindfulness practice, Christine loves to read, travel, get outdoors and snuggle in with her two cats.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Christine Costello, MSW, YA RYT 200
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Milieu and Program Therapist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Christin Conkle, LMFT, RYT 200
Lead Therapist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Christin is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. As one of the primary therapist and Clinical Supervisor's in the Adolescent Program she conducts family therapy, milieu therapy, and helps to manage the Multi-Family day on Saturday. Specific training is in Family Based Therapy-Anorexia (FBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Co-Occurring Disorders.
About Christin Conkle, LMFT, RYT 200
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Lead Therapist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Tiffany Nakamura, MA, NCC, LPCC, YA RYT 200
Therapist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
Tiffany is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor at the UCSD Eating Disorders Center for Treatment and Research Program. She graduated with her BA in Psychology and a MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with an emphasis in Asian American Mental Health from the University of San Diego. She previously interned at Urban Corps of San Diego providing individual and group counseling for at risk young adults. Tiffany is dual licensed clinician in Hawaii and California, and has experience working with adolescents, families, and adults in PHP and outpatient settings. She currently works in the Adult Treatment program providing individual, family, and group therapy. Tiffany has specialized clinical training in DBT, RO-DBT, FBT, Parent Management Training, Prolonged Exposure, and ACT. She is also a certified yoga instructor with additional yin specialization and introduced yoga to both adult and adolescent programs. As a published researcher and presenter at local and international conferences, she has special interest and active engagement in the research of eating disorder treatment outcomes and development. For fun Tiffany loves yoga, rock climbing, surfing, travelling, and animals – particularly a Chihuahua-Papillon named Mimi.
eatingdisorders.ucsd.edu
About Tiffany Nakamura, MA, NCC, LPCC, YA RYT 200
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Therapist, UC San Diego Eating Disorders Center
