School of Medicine
Showing 1-27 of 27 Results
-
Elias Aboujaoude, MD, MA
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioDr. Aboujaoude is a Clinical Professor, researcher and writer at Stanford University's Department of Psychiatry, where he is Chief of the Anxiety Disorders Section and Director of the OCD Clinic and the Impulse Control Disorders Clinic. Besides the compulsivity-impulsivity spectrum, his work has focused on the intersection of technology and psychology, with an emphasis on the problematic use of Internet-related technologies, mental health in a post-privacy world, and the potential for telemedicine interventions such as virtual reality and video-based therapy to increase access to care and advance global health. His books include "Virtually You: The Dangerous Powers of the e-Personality" and "Mental Heath in the Digital Age: Grave Dangers, Great Promise". Dr. Aboujaoude also teaches psychology on the main Stanford campus and at UC Berkeley. Scholarly and media platforms that have featured his work include The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Congressional Quarterly, The Harvard Business Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, BBC, PBS, and CNN.
-
Daniel A. Abrams
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences - Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAutism spectrum disorders (ASD) are among the most pervasive neurodevelopmental disorders and are characterized by significant deficits in social communication. A common observation in children with ASD is that affected individuals often “tune out” from social interactions, which likely impacts the development of social, communication, and language skills. My primary research goals are to understand why children with ASD often tune out from the social world and how this impacts social skill and brain development, and to identify remediation strategies that motivate children with ASD to engage in social interactions. The theoretical framework that guides my work is that social impairments in ASD stem from a primary deficit in identifying social stimuli, such as human voices and faces, as rewarding and salient stimuli, thereby precluding children with ASD from engaging with these stimuli.
My program of research has provided important information regarding the brain circuits underlying social deficits in ASD. Importantly, these findings have consistently implicated key structures of the brain’s reward and salience processing systems, and support the hypothesis that impaired reward attribution to social stimuli is a critical aspect of social difficulties in ASD.
My lab is currently conducting three research studies:
Speaker-Listener Coupling and Brain Dynamics During Naturalistic Verbal Communication in Children with Autism
We have a new study investigating how the brain processes and understands speech in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder as well as typically developing children. We are interested in understanding speech comprehension in children through anticipating incoming speech and accumulating speech information over a period of time.
Speaker-Listener Coupling and Brain Dynamics During Naturalistic Verbal Communication in Alzheimer’s Disease
In collaboration with the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, our new study is exploring how the brain enables us to understand speech, with a focus on both healthy older adults and adults with Alzheimer’s Disease. We also aim to understand how the brain measures seen while we listen and understand a story are linked to language skills in these individuals.
Pivotal Response Treatment for Adolescents with High Functioning Autism Intervention Study
This is a 9-week intervention focusing on key social skills for autistic adolescents, while exploring brain plasticity using fMRI imaging. Your child will receive 1:1 sessions with our clinician, with parent training in clinic. Topics include: Greetings, Departures, Question Asking, Talking the Right Amount, Empathy, Sarcasm, and Eating and Drinking. We also coordinate with the school for additional support and opportunities to practice the targeted social skills in a club of interest. -
Connor Adams
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioDr. Connor Adams (she/they) is a Clinical Assistant Professor who received her doctorate in psychology from the George Washington University and completed her internship training at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance. Her clinical and research interests center on therapeutic interventions that support recovery for individuals living with serious mental illness. Dr. Adams grounds her work in a psychodynamic perspective, assisting individuals in understanding why they think, feel, and behave the way they do, in order to increase agency and choice. Dr. Adams has specialized training in comprehensive Dialectical Behavior Therapy and provides treatment for individuals with emotion regulation difficulties. She also has specialized training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp). Additionally, Dr. Adams provides individual and group psychotherapy within the psychiatric inpatient treatment setting. She is broadly interested in increasing access to person-centered and recovery-oriented care.
-
Leslie Adams
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health) and, by courtesy, of Pediatrics
BioLeslie Adams, PhD, MPH is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Public Mental Health and Population Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, where she focuses on addressing mental health disparities among Black boys and men. As a behavioral scientist, her research emphasizes the role of structural racism, gender norms, and psychosocial stressors in influencing mental health outcomes. Dr. Adams employs mixed-methods approaches, including ecological momentary assessment and passive data sensing, to explore real-time stressors like racial discrimination and their link to depressive symptoms and suicidality. Prior to her role at Stanford, she served as an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and was a David E. Bell Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies.
-
Ehsan Adeli
Assistant Professor (Research) of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Populations Sciences) and, by courtesy, of Computer Science and of Biomedical Data Science
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research lies in the intersection of Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Healthcare, Ambient Intelligence, and Computational Neuroscience.
-
Steven Adelsheim
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioSteven Adelsheim, MD is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and Associate Chair for
Community Engagement in Stanford’s Department of Psychiatry, where he directs the Center for
Youth Mental Health and Wellbeing. A national leader in early intervention, Dr. Adelsheim
spearheaded the launch of allcove—a youth-driven, integrated mental health model now
expanding across California. He also co-leads PEPPNET, the national early psychosis clinical
network. His work extends to youth suicide prevention, school mental health systems, and
partnerships with Indigenous communities to strengthen culturally grounded early intervention
for tribal youth. Dr. Adelsheim’s career is grounded in building equitable, accessible mental
health systems for young people nationwide. -
Sarah Adler
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsI am interested in the design and delivery of clinical care using, data and technology. I have focused on disordered eating behaviors and obesity.
-
W. Stewart Agras
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsMy research is focused on disorders of human feeding including the eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. Ongoing or recently completed studies include: A controlled trial of the implementation of interpersonal psychotherapy for eating disorders and depression on college campuses across the U.S. A multisite controlled study of two types of family therapy for the treatment of adolescent anorexia nervosa. Early prevemtion of overweight and obesity.
-
Teddy J. Akiki, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Akiki's research focuses on advancing precision psychiatry through computational neuroscience approaches. His work centers on developing transformer-based foundation models for functional neuroimaging that can predict treatment responses and symptom trajectories in psychiatric disorders. Using multimodal connectomics (combining structural, functional, and diffusion MRI), he maps neural circuits underlying stress-related conditions, with particular emphasis on identifying dysconnectivity patterns in PTSD and depression. Dr. Akiki develops novel analytical methods for neuroimaging data, including network-restricted metrics and community detection frameworks optimized for functional time series. His translational work includes neuroimaging-augmented clinical trials of novel therapeutics for treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders, with the goal of implementing data-driven, personalized interventions based on individual neurobiological profiles.
-
Amy Alexander
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCollege Mental Health, Emotional Support Animals & Service Animals, Women's Health, Mental Health & Well-being in Veterinarians
-
Olivia Altamirano, PhD
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCulturally Sensitive Therapy is a group psychotherapy for people with early psychosis and their families. Study aims are to understand if this treatment is compatible with this population, to assess improvements in family functioning and mental health symptoms, to assess mediating factors (e.g., increased usage of adaptive religious and other cultural beliefs/values), and to assess longevity of improvements. Last, we aim to qualitatively understand participants’ experiences with this treatment.
-
James Armontrout
Clinical Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
BioDr. Armontrout is the Program Director of the Stanford Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship. He completed residency training at the Harvard Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program, followed by forensic psychiatry fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. He is board certified in Psychiatry, Forensic Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine.
Before coming to Stanford Dr. Armontrout worked as a staff psychiatrist for the Palo Alto VA Healthcare System at the Trauma Recovery Program, a residential treatment program focusing on PTSD, other trauma-related disorders, and substance use disorders. For a portion of Dr. Armontrout's time with the VA he served as the Medical Director for the Trauma Recovery Program.
In addition to his forensic fellowship activities, Dr. Armontrout currently serves as an attending in the Stanford PTSD clinic and the dual diagnosis clinic. -
Bruce Arnow, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (General Psychiatry and Psychology - Adult)
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCurrent research interests include treatment outcome for major depression, particularly treatment refractory and chronic forms of major depression, as well as mediators and moderators of outcome; the epidemiology of chronic pain and depression; relationships between child maltreatment and adult sequelae, including psychiatric, medical and health care utilization.
-
Alan Atkins
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences - Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Child Development
BioDr. Al Atkins is a psychiatrist providing talk therapy and medical management in English and Spanish.
Dr. Atkins grew up in California and started his mental health career facilitating therapy at a prison in Buenos Aires. He teamed up with his patients and colleagues to build a climbing wall inside the prison, allowing patients to challenge themselves physically and mentally. After medical school at Brown University, Dr. Atkins completed psychiatry residency and founded a research team dedicated to investigating the healing power of walking in nature. After residency, Dr. Atkins traveled to Colorado to complete a two year fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. There, he served as Chief Fellow and pursued specialized therapy training. Dr. Atkins has been awarded the Kimberly Kelsay Curiosity Award for his enthusiasm for learning from his patients and the Catcher in the Rye award for "going the extra mile" for his Spanish-speaking Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) patients. Some career highlights have included teaching meditation neuroscience to doctors in Cambodia and getting to learn from doctors and patients in Kumasi, Ghana.
Contemplative practice, psychotherapy, humor and nature time permeate both Dr. Atkins' clinical and personal interests. His clinical style involves a slow-moving dynamic emphasizing trust, understanding, and diagnostic humility. He takes an integrative and minimalist approach; often prescribing things like morning walks or returning to a favorite hobby before resorting to medications. -
Aparna Atluru, MD, MBA
Clinical Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsPhysician Mental Health, Resident Mental Health
-
Rania Awaad, MD
Clinical Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsAs the Director of the Muslims and Mental Health Lab, Dr. Awaad is dedicated to creating an academic home for the study of mental health as it relates to the Islamic faith and Muslim populations. The lab aims to provide the intellectual resources to clinicians, researchers, trainees, educators, community and religious leaders working with or studying Muslims.
