Infant Insitute Faculty

Faculty

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Tulane Institute of Infant and
Early Childhood Mental Health

Charles H. Zeanah, Jr., M.D. – a child and adolescent psychiatrist, is Sellars-Polchow Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at the Tulane University School of Medicine. He serves as Executive Director of the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. He also directs the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team, a community-based intervention program for abused and neglected infants and toddlers in the New Orleans area. He has a longstanding interest in Infant Mental Health, and his research and clinical interests concern the effects of exposure to violence on the development of young children, attachment and its development in high-risk environments, risk and protective factors in development, psychopathology in early childhood, and infant-parent relationships. He has published numerous scientific papers and book chapters on these topics. He is the editor of the Handbook of Infant Mental Health, published by Guilford Press. He serves as a member of the Council (Board) of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Geoffrey Nagle, Ph.D., M.P.H., L.C.S.W. – a clinical social worker, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine and the Director of the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. Geoff serves as the state coordinator of BrightStart, the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems grant initiative administered by the Louisiana Office of Public Health. This effort, funded by the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, is focused on building a true early childhood system in Louisiana, one that integrates supports for young children, families and communities in the areas of medical care, social-emotional development, early education, and family support/parenting education. BrightStart has been instrumental in the development and implementation of Quality Start, Louisiana’s child care quality rating system, as well as new laws that create an Early Childhood System Integration Budget, the School Readiness Tax Credits, and for the future phased-in expansion to universal pre-k. Geoff serves on numerous advisory groups and boards including the Governor’s Children’s Cabinet Advisory Board, the board of the Louisiana Partnership for Children and Families and the board of the Louisiana Children’s Museum, among others. His research interests are in the economic benefits of prevention and how the results of research in early childhood influence public policy decisions.

Letia O. Bailey, L.C.S.W. – a licensed clinical social worker, is a Clinical Instructor at the Tulane University School of Medicine. She is a clinician and core team member with the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team, a multi-disciplinary team that provides intensive intervention to maltreated infants and their families. Her clinical focus with the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team is consultation, assessment, and treatment of infants and their families. Also, Letia provides clinical oversight and supervision for Early Childhood Supports and Services in Orleans Parish. This clinical supervision includes consultation, assessment and treatment of young children and their families. In addition, Letia is the principal investigator for an intervention targeting maternal depression in New Orleans entitled “Developing a Non-Traditional Intervention Approach to Maternal Depression in High Risk Populations,” funded by the Institute of Mental Hygiene. Letia is a graduate of the Irving B. Harris Fellowship Program at LSUHSC Harris Center for Infant Mental Health.

Allison B. Boothe, Ph.D.– is a licensed clinical psychologist with specialized training in Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. She is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Tulane University School of Medicine and is the coordinator of the Louisiana Quality Start Mental Health Consultation to Childcare Centers Program. Allison co-developed the Louisiana Quality Start mental health consultation model, which focuses on supporting young children’s social-emotional development in the context of child care centers. As a senior mental health consultant for the program, Allison has provided mental health consultation to childcare centers across the greater New Orleans area and she supervises mental health consultants across the state. Allison is a member of the steering committee for the Bridge to Quality Project of the Greater New Orleans Child Care Rebuild Collaborative. Her research interests include the impact of mental health consultation on child care quality, school readiness, clinical interventions, and identity development.

Neil Boris, M.D .– a pediatrician and child and adolescent psychiatrist, is Associate Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and Pediatrics at the Tulane University School of Medicine. He co-directs the Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation/Liaison service at Tulane Hospital and is co-Clinical Care Director for Louisiana’s Early Childhood Supports and Services program. Dr. Boris is a clinician, research scientist and teacher and he specializes in the social and emotional development of high-risk children under five years of age. He has written extensively on attachment disorders in infants and young children. He works with colleagues on attachment-based interventions including the Circle of Security intervention for high-risk parents. He has also conducted research on high risk families from those involved with the Nurse-Family Partnership in Louisiana to those orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Rwanda and Malawi. He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Infant Mental Health Journal and has been on the Board of Directors for the World Association of Infant Mental Health and Agenda for Children. He is the father of two young children who keep him grounded. a pediatrician and child and adolescent psychiatrist, is an Associate Professor at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in the Department of Community Health Sciences. He teaches in the maternal and child health section. He is also Associate Professor in the departments of Psychiatry and Neurology and Pediatrics at the Tulane University School of Medicine. He co-directs the Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation/Liaison service. After completing his residency training, Dr. Boris received a four-year Physician Scientist Research Career Development Award (K12), sponsored jointly by the National Institute of Mental Health and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. A significant focus of his research has been on the social and emotional development of high-risk children under five years of age. He has written extensively on attachment disorders in infants and young children. He has been the Principal Investigator on three major longitudinal studies. The first is a recently completed evaluation of the efficacy of augmenting David Olds’ Nurse Family Partnership model to include mental health consultation. This project targeted impoverished, first-time mothers and their infants in the Lafayette, LA, area. The second is a follow-up study of young children placed in foster care following maltreatment designed to examine outcomes of children returned to birth parents, placed with relatives, and freed for adoption. The third is a University-Early Head Start partnership study comparing two parenting interventions targeting a sample of high-risk adolescent mothers. He is also co-investigator on a longitudinal grant measuring the impact of community-based mentoring on the psychosocial wellbeing of children living in child-headed households in Rwanda. He serves on the Board of Directors for the World Association of Infant Mental Health and Agenda for Children.

Angela S. Breidenstine, Ph.D. – is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in the Tulane University School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Neurology. She works as a psychologist with the Tulane Infant Team, where she evaluates and treats maltreated infants, toddlers, biological parents, and foster parents. Angie is also a consulting psychologist to Orleans Parish Early Childhood Supports and Services (ECSS), one of a state-wide network of clinics operated by the Louisiana Office of Mental Health. At ECSS, she provides consultation, assessment, and treatment to young children and their families. Angie serves as co-coordinator of the Infant Mental Health training program, an intensive training experience offered through the Tulane Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. She also works as an Infant Mental Health Consultant for the Supportive Enhancement of Caregiving Responsiveness Project for the Lafayette Office of Community Services. Her research interests include questions related to developmental psychopathology, attachment relationships, and risk and resilience.

Melanie Bronfin, J.D.– an attorney, is a clinical faculty member at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Her focus is on public policy affecting children. Melanie is currently the associate state coordinator for the BrightStart, the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Grant initiative through the Louisiana Office of Public Health. This initiative is a federally funded effort to assist states in developing a true system for early childhood, including five critical component areas: access to health insurance and medical homes, mental health and social-emotional development, early care and education/child care, family support, and parenting education. This work has included the creation of a statewide association for professional parent educators, the Louisiana Parenting Education Network (LAPEN). Melanie also serves on the boards of other agencies providing services to at-risk children, including Kingsley House, Agenda for Children, and the Early Childhood and Family Learning Foundation, as well as on the steering committee for the Bridge to Quality Project of the Greater New Orleans Child Care Rebuild Collaborative.

Mary Margaret Gleason, M.D .– a pediatrician and child psychiatrist, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Tulane University School of Medicine. With Neil Boris, she is the clinical co-director for Louisiana’s early childhood mental health program, Early Childhood Supports and Services program, where she also serves as a child psychiatrist. One research interest is facilitating early identification of high-risk young children in the community to optimize intervention efforts. To this end, she has developed and validated a screening tool specifically for primary care physicians. The tool has approved for use in Louisiana’s child care screening program as part of the quality rating scale initiative and by the Rhode Island Department of health for a primary care screening program in Rhode Island as well as other primary care and mental health clinical sites nationally. Dr. Gleason participates in the Louisiana child care Quality Rating Scale project. Dr. Gleason coordinated an effort to define the evidence base related to preschool medications and to develop evidence-informed treatment algorithms to guide responsible treatment decisions. Her ongoing research interests focus on defining early childhood psychopathology and understanding treatment approaches. a pediatrician and child psychiatrist, is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Tulane University School of Medicine, and an NIMH T32 Research Fellow and Clinical Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Brown Medical School. Her clinical work includes evaluation and treatment of high-risk infants, young children and their families through Louisiana’s Early Childhood Supports and Services program. She is interested in facilitating early identification of high-risk young children in the community to optimize intervention efforts. To this end, she has developed and validated a screening tool specifically for primary care physicians. She will be assisting the Rhode Island Department of Health in the implementation of a universal screening program for emotional and behavioral problems in young children. She also has academic interests in primary and secondary prevention in early childhood maltreatment, parent-child relationships, and biological stress responses in early childhood. Currently, Mary Margaret is involved in training residents in pediatrics and child psychiatry at Brown, where she is on the Triple Board Training faculty.

Sherryl Scott Heller, Ph.D.– an applied developmental psychologist, Sherry has worked with maltreated children and foster parents as a part of the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team since December of 1994. While a faculty member at the Tulane University School of Medicine, Sherry served as a co-investigator on two longitudinal research projects. The first project collected follow-up data on maltreated children treated by the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team and a non-maltreated comparison group. The second research project was in collaboration with Early Head Start. This project investigated the outcome of two parent training protocols within a high-risk adolescent parent population. Currently, Sherry provides consultation services on infant mental health to a local Early Head Start program—an extension of work started under a competitive national initiative, coordinated by Zero to Three, to increase the reflective practice at elected EHS sites. Also, Sherry is involved with a project focused on developing a quality rating system for child care centers in Louisiana. She has long-standing clinical and research interests in the effects of maltreatment on child development, the development of attachment and attachment disturbances in very young children, child care, gender development and disturbances, the effects of violence on child development, and perinatal loss.

Angela Keyes, Ph.D.– an applied developmental psychologist, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Tulane School of Medicine. She has been involved in the development and implementation of Quality Start: Louisiana’s Child Care Rating System and served on the state Steering Committee. She is the Director of the Environment Rating Scales assessment team and is responsible for supervising the administration of the scales which are used to evaluate quality in child care centers. She has developed trainings on the environment rating scales for child care providers and other interested stakeholders and conducts trainings in infant mental health. Dr. Keyes helped to develop a model for mental health consultation to assist centers in fostering children’s social-emotional development. She provides mental health consultation services in the greater New Orleans area and supervises mental health consultants across the state. Her research interests include quality of child care and its effect on children’s development, school readiness, positive discipline, multiculturalism and parenting.

Julie Larrieu, Ph.D.– a developmental and clinical psychologist, is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the Tulane University School of Medicine. She is the training director for the predoctoral clinical psychology internship program and a senior trainer at the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, involved in both the didactic instruction and the clinical supervision of field practice of interns and other trainees. She is the Associate Director of the Tulane /JPHSA Infant Team, a multidisciplinary team that provides intensive intervention to maltreated infants and their families. In addition, she is an infant mental health consultant for the Louisiana Office of Public Health, where she trains nurses and other health service providers about the mental health needs of infants and young children. She is the site director for the Tulane component of the Early Trauma Treatment Network, a treatment and service development program within the Child Traumatic Stress Initiative. This program, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, is evaluating child-parent psychotherapy for children ages birth to six who have experienced interpersonal violence and sudden loss. Julie is a certified Instructor for the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training (NCAST) Feeding and Teaching Scales that assess parent-infant interactions. Her ongoing research interests include developmental psychopathology, child abuse and neglect, and symptoms arising from early trauma.

Devi Miron, Ph.D. – is a licensed psychologist and Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Dr. Miron received her doctoral degree in School Psychology from Tulane University. She completed an internship in child and adolescent clinical psychology at the University of New Mexico Children’s Psychiatric Center. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, focusing on developmental assessments with infants who had been prenatally exposed to substances and consultation and therapy with adoptive children and families. She also completed a fellowship in Infant Mental Health at the Tulane School of Medicine. Currently, Dr. Miron is a clinician at the Tulane Infant Team, a community-based intervention program with abused and neglected infants and toddlers in the New Orleans area. She also is a school psychologist at Langston Hughes Academy Charter School in New Orleans, serving children in grades K-6 and their parents and teachers. Dr. Miron is co-principal investigator and project coordinator of Supportive Enhancement of Caregiving Responsiveness, Lafayette Office of Community Services (SECRLOCS), a consultation and research project with foster care workers, foster parents, and foster children.

Michael S. Scheeringa, M.D., M.P.H. – a child and adolescent psychiatrist, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry, as well as an Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Michael is carrying out a programmatic series of studies of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in preschool children. His initial studies pioneered assessment of the validity of the diagnostic criteria. He recently is conduct ed ing two NIMH-funded stud ies y of traumatized preschool children. One study aims to assess ed their psychiatric symptoms, autonomic reactivity, and family functioning. The second study is explor ed ing the feasibility and effectiveness of a manualized cognitive-behavioral treatment for 3-6 year-old children. He also has piloted a new academic interests in parent-child relationship difficulties, diagnostic assessment tool of young children , neurobiological correlates of psychiatric disorders, and development of protocol-driven therapies. Michael served as chair of the Task Force on Research Diagnostic Criteria for Infant and Preschool Children and is past chair of the American Psychiatric Association Preschool Committee.

Anna T. Smyke, Ph.D .– an applied developmental psychologist, is an Assistant Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Neurology at the Tulane University School of Medicine. She is the Director Coordinator of the Foster Care Team which provides developmental and behavioral evaluation and treatment of very young foster children followed by the Tulane /JPHSA Infant Team. She also serve d s as the Coordinator of the Bucharest Early Intervention Project, a research project conducted in Romania and designed to examine the effects of institutionalization on children's development and whether placing previously institutionalized infants and toddlers in foster homes can repair some of the behavioral, social, and emotional abnormalities associated with institutionalization. Her research interests include attachment disorders and disturbances, effects of maltreatment on young children, and high-risk parenting.

Krystal M. Vaughn, L.P.C., N.C.C., M.S . – a Licensed Professional Counselor, is a Clinical Instructor at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Krystal has worked as a Mental Health Consultant with the Louisiana Quality Start Mental Health Consultation to Childcare Centers Program since its began statewide in July 2007. As a Mental Health Consultant, Krystal facilitated social-emotional wellbeing education through a center-based approach. This consultation model, included but was not limited to, didactic seminars with staff, classroom modeling and observation, parental meetings, and referrals to outside agencies. Krystal is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Counseling Education. She has experience as a counselor in in-patient settings, in the non-profit sector, and in private practice. Krystal is also a National Certified Counselor through the National Board for Certified Counselors. Krystal currently assists with the implementation and program evaluation of the Mental Health Consultation program.

Valerie A. Wajda-Johnston, Ph.D. – a clinical psychologist, is an Assistant Professor at the Tulane University School of Medicine. Valerie is the training coordinator for the Infant Mental Health Training, a year-long training for that is offered through the Institute of Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. She is a clinician with the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team, a multidisciplinary team that provides intensive intervention to maltreated infants and their families. Her clinical focus on the Tulane/JPHSA Infant Team is consultation, assessment and treatment of infants and their families. She also provides psychology services to the Delta and Ouachita ECSS sites. Valerie provides consultation services at the Louisiana Children’s Museum, which includes program development and direct consultation to parents and children. Her research and clinical interests include child abuse and neglect, substance abuse, and professional training issues.

Paula Zeanah, Ph.D., M.S.N.– a clinical psychologist and pediatric nurse, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at the Tulane University School of Medicine. She is co-director of the Pediatric Psychiatry Consultation-Liaison service at Tulane Hospital. She serves as a mental health consultant for the Louisiana Office of Public Health, involved in professional training, consultation, and program development regarding mental health issues for the Maternal and Child Health section. She also is the Director of the Louisiana Nurse Family Partnership Program. Paula is certified as an instructor for the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training (NCAST). She has various early childhood research interests related to nurse home visiting, chronic illness in childhood, and professional development.