Fellowship Faculty Mentors

 Lisham (Lee) Ashrafioun, PhD  currently accepting a fellow

• Substance use disorders, chronic pain, and suicide
• Psychosocial pain and substance use disorders treatments; health services intervention to increase engagement in psychosocial treatments
• Veterans
• Current projects for fellow involvement: trials of clinical and health services research on mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral interventions among individuals with substance use disorders and/or chronic pain; Secondary analysis from clinical trials, publicly available datasets, and electronic health record data; program evaluation research in community-based projects to prevent overdose in rural communities
• Contact Dr. Ashrafioun

 Todd Bishop, PhD

• Impact of sleep disorders on the development and course of suicide risk
• Suicide in military populations
• Treatment initiation and adherence in patients with obstructive sleep apnea
• Contact Dr. Bishop

Eric Caine, MD 

• Public health and population-based approaches to suicide prevention
• Policy
• 18-34 year old Veterans: Premature death, suicide, and upstream prevention
• Contact Dr. Caine

Ben Chapman, PhD, MPH currently accepting a fellow 

• Predictors of successful aging (e.g., personality, socioeconomic status) vs. premature mortality (suicide, all-cause)
• Epidemiologic methods & biostatistics
• Current projects for fellow involvement: Life course epidemiologic data on social factors and later life health, including suicide and related outcomes (we have other mental health diagnoses.
• Contact Dr. Chapman

Kate Cerulli, JD, PhD 

• Interpersonal violence and suicide
• Child abuse and neglect
• Therapeutic justice
• Contact Dr. Cerulli

Kenneth Conner, PsyD, MPH currently accepting a fellow 

• Substance abuse and suicide
• High risk approaches
• Emergency care
• Current projects for fellow involvement: Opportunity to collaborate in an ongoing R01 study of acute warning signs for suicidal behavior in adult patients hospitalized following a suicide attempt at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
• Contact Dr. Conner

Yeates Conwell, MD 

• Suicide in later life
• Health and aging services and interventions research
• Contact Dr. Conwell

Caroline Easton, PhD currently accepting a fellow

• Digital Therapeutics, Digital Treatment Tools, Wearable Technology,
• Biomarker Research, AI
• Fields of Study:  Addiction Psychiatry, Forensics, Family Violence & Suicide Prevention
• Current projects for fellow involvement:  RITch®CBT (Avatar Assisted CBT) vs. TAU (Human Administered CBT) to Treat Addiction, Depression & Aggression Outcomes. Additionally, objective data will be collected via wearable technology as well as cortisol & genetic biomarker data. 
• Contact Dr. Easton

Paul Geha, MD currently accepting a fellow 

• Chronic pain & suicide
• Methodologies include brain imaging & natural language processing
• Current projects for fellow involvement: study examining the language of chronic pain using natural language and acoustic analyses; study of brain biomarkers of risk and resilience to chronic pain using fMRI.
• Contact Dr. Geha

Yue Li, PhD 

• Health economics
• Older adult health services research
• Big data analytics, machine learning
• Contact Dr. Li

Thomas O'Connor, PhD currently accepting a fellow 

• Perinatal mental health
• Developmental origins of health & disease
• Psychological-biological mechanisms
• Current projects for fellow involvement: Opportunity to work on multi-disciplinary projects that track experiences and exposures in pregnancy and their impact on the mother and developing child.
• Contact Dr. O'Connor

Wilfred Pigeon, PhD  currently accepting a fellow  

• Sleep problems and suicide
• Behavioral interventions research
• Veterans
• Current projects for fellow involvement: Opportunity to be involved in a large, DoD-funded, 4-year, innovative clinical trial testing digital interventions for insomnia and depression and/or an NIH-funded treatment development grant to adapt CBT for insomnia to hazardous alcohol users; access to resources of The Sleep & Neurophysiology Sleep Research Laboratory; collaborations with our Behavioral Sleep Medicine Service
• Contact Dr. Pigeon

Tony Pisani, PhD 

• Clinical assessment and management of at risk groups
• Training models
• Behavioral interventions research
• Contact Dr. Pisani

Caroline Silva, PhD  currently accepting a fellow 

• Suicide prevention interventions for geographically and linguistically isolated minorities, in particular Hispanic/Latino adults
• Psychosocial interventions targeting cultural-social determinants of suicide
• Smartphone technology to assess real time, real world changes in suicide risk
• Current project for fellow involvement: clinical trial of brief coaching program (Engage Coaching) to increase cultural-social engagement among Spanish-speakers at risk for suicide, including use of active (EMA) and passive (GPS; ambient audio) remote monitoring to track outcomes
• Contact Dr. Silva

Marc Swogger, PhD 

• Forensic and justice-involved individuals at risk
• Behavioral health treatment engagement and treatment to reduce risk
• Contact Dr. Swogger

Kim Van Orden, PhD  currently accepting a fellow  

• Later life suicide prevention research
• Psychosocial interventions for loneliness, isolation
• Interpersonal Theory of Suicide
• Current projects for fellow involvement: clinical trial of a brief coaching program (Engage Coaching) to reduce loneliness in older adults, including the use of smartphone-based monitoring (active & passive monitoring); co-mentoring with Dr. Caroline Silva on a clinical trial of Engage Coaching for Spanish-speakers; collaboration with Dr. Aileen Aldalur on suicide risk in Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing adults; secondary data analysis from several clinical trials with lonely older adults.
• Contact Dr. Van Orden

Arielle Sheftall, PhD  currently accepting a fellow 

• Developmental mechanisms that confer risk for suicide in childhood
• Racial disparities in suicidal behavior among youth
• Mental health promotion and suicide prevention for Black youth
• Current projects for fellow involvement: a longitudinal study investigating the relationship between trajectories of neurocognitive functioning and emotion regulation/reactivity and suicidal behavior in youth with a parental history of suicidal behavior; a longitudinal study investigating familial characteristics, ADHD symptomology, and neurocognitive functioning in suicide risk; a randomized control trial that investigates the effectiveness of two non-traditional methods of therapy in decreasing depression and anxiety symptomology as well as suicidal behavior.
• Contact Dr. Sheftall

Steve Silverstein, PhD  

• Suicide risk in first-episode psychosis and high-risk states
• Relationships between perceptual changes and suicide risk in schizophrenia and risk states
• Suicide risk and mental health after vision loss
• Contact Dr. Silverstein

Sheree Toth, PhD

• Developmental psychopathology
• Child maltreatment, maternal depression influences
• Preventive interventions with at-risk youth
• Contact Dr. Toth

Marsha Wittink, MD currently accepting a fellow (to co-mentor)  

• Severe mental illness and psychotic disorders
• Medical comorbidity, especially cardiovascular disease, diabetes, COPD
• Hospital outcomes such as length of stay and readmission rate, primary care outcomes such as engagement in care, process metrics
• Current projects for fellow involvement: Opportunity to be involved in comparison of 3 medical psychiatry units, patient characteristics and health utilization outcomes, development of research infrastructure for longitudinal mental health, cognitive, functional and physical functioning over time.  
• Contact Dr. Wittink

Peter Wyman, PhD currently accepting a fellow 

• Youth and young adults/military populations
• Social network analysis
• Community-partnered interventions research
• Contact Dr. Wyman