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Hidden Casualties of War 2009 Symposium
SPEAKER CREDENTIALS AND BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS
| Andrasik, Frank (PhD) Distinguished University Professor, School of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences, University of West Florida |
| Dr. Frank Andrasik is a Distinguished University Professor in the School of Psychological and Behavioral Sciences, University of West Florida (UWF), Pensacola. Previously he held the positions of Assistant and Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, SUNY-Albany, NY; Research Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, Albany Medical College; and Associate Director, Pain Therapy Centers, Greenville, SC. At SUNYA he assisted in establishing and directing a clinical research unit (Stress Disorders Clinic of the Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders, in concert with Edward B. Blanchard, Ph.D., and David H. Barlow, Ph.D.) investigating both pharmacological and nonpharmacological approaches to varied stress and pain problems. Dr. Andrasik has been the recipient of several federal and foundation research grants, including a Research Career Development Award. His honors include the Distinguished Research and Creative Activity Award (1990), University Scholarly and Creative Activities Award (2006), and induction in the Million Dollar Research Club (2006) all at UWF, and the Merit Award for Long-Term Research and/or Clinical Achievements (1992) and the Distinguished Scientist Award (2002) from the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback (AAPB). He is the present Editor-in-Chief for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, having served as past Editor-in-Chief for Behavior Therapy. He additionally serves on the editorial board for several other leading behavioral journals, including the journal Pain. He holds the status of Fellow in the American Psychological Association (Division of Health Psychology and Society of Clinical Psychology), American Psychological Society, and Society of Behavioral Medicine. He is a Past President of AAPB, and recently became President-Elect of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies. He has authored over 250 articles and chapters and delivered numerous talks. He has produced several texts for professionals. Some of his recent published texts are Biofeedback: A practitioner’s guide (3rd ed.), co-edited with Mark S. Schwartz in 2003, and Comprehensive Handbook of Personality and Psychopathology, Volume Two: Adult Psychopathology, an edited volume published in 2006. |
| Clark, Edmund (MD) Lieutenant, MC, US Navy; Psychiatrist, Mental Health Clinic, Naval Hospital Pensacola |
| LT (Dr.) Edmund Clark is a Navy psychiatrist that recently returned from a deployment to Iraq where he was stationed at an Army Combat Stress Control Clinic outside of Baghdad. He completed his residency training at Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center where he served as one of the chief residents in 2007. He is now assigned to the behavioral health care clinic at Naval Hospital Pensacola. In another life, he earned a Master’s Degree in comparative endocrinology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He then served in the United States Peace Corps for two years in Kenya, before returning to attend medical school at the University of Florida on a Navy sponsored HPSP scholarship. |
| Demery, Jason (PhD) Staff Neuropsychologist, North Florida/South Georgia Veterans Health System |
| Dr. Jason Demery is currently a Clinical Neuropsychologist at the Gainesville VA Medical Center and is assigned to the Traumatic Brain Injury Program where he works with patients with both blast- and non-blast-related TBI. His current area of research focuses on the clinical validation of serum biomarkers as acute predictors of brain injury severity and neuropsychological dysfunction following traumatic brain injury and subarachnoid hemorrhage. Dr. Jason Demery earned his B.A. in Psychology in 1995 from the University of West Florida. While there, he participated in biofeedback research with Drs. Frank Andrasik and Thomas Budzynski in the Center for Behavioral Medicine. He matriculated to Southern Illinois University and began studies in neuropsychology in 1996 and worked in TBI rehabilitation at Barnes Hospital/Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in Neuropsychology, from the University of Florida in 2004. After internship at the Tampa VA Hospital, Dr. Demery completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Florida in Neuropsychology and Neuroscience. |
| Drescher, Kent (MDiv, PhD) Research Health Science Specialist, NCPTSD – VA Medical Center, Palo Alto |
| Dr. Kent D. Drescher is a licensed psychologist on staff at the National Center for PTSD: Dissemination and Training Division in Menlo Park, CA, which is part of the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Dr. Drescher is involved in several national educational and dissemination efforts sponsored by the National Center. He has special research and education interests in the area of trauma and spirituality and has published and presented extensively and contributed to national training efforts for both the VA and DoD in this area. He is involved in the training of both military and VA chaplains in PTSD and combat operational stress. He has 18 years of clinical experience in treating military veterans with PTSD utilizing cognitive-behavioral approaches. He has collaborated with several colleagues in developing a manualized group therapy approach to trauma and spirituality issues for use as a supplement to empirically supported treatments for PTSD. Prior to his doctoral training at Fuller Graduate School of Psychology, he received a Masters of Divinity degree from San Francisco Theological Seminary, was ordained by the Presbyterian Church USA, and served as a minister for five years at a church in Idaho. |
| Farchione, Todd (PhD) Research Assistant Professor, Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Boston University |
| Dr. Todd Farchione received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Boston University. His research conducted at the Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD) in Boston, Massachusetts focuses on understanding emotion regulation processes, identifying mechanisms of change in treatment, and on developing new preventative measures and improved treatments for emotional disorders. Dr. Farchione oversees several research and clinical treatment programs provided at CARD and currently directs an NIMH funded study aimed at developing and evaluating the efficacy of a “unified” psychological treatment for anxiety and commonly co-occurring conditions, such as depression. Dr. Farchione teaches, lectures, and conducts training workshops on the nature and treatment of emotional disorders and has been recognized for his dedication to improving training of clinicians and dissemination of empirically supported treatment strategies. |
| Germain, Anne (PhD) Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic |
| Dr. Anne Germain is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. She obtained her doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology from the Université de Montréal in 2001, and completed her post-doctoral training at the University of Pittsburgh in 2005. Her research program focuses on the assessment and treatment of sleep disorders and sleep disturbances that occur in the context of stress-related disorders, with a special emphasis on insomnia, nightmares, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her research program also includes the investigation of the psychophysiological and functional neurobiological correlates of PTSD during sleep, the development and evaluation of pharmacological and new behavioral interventions targeting insomnia and nightmares, and the mechanisms that underlie the effects of sleep treatments on sleep quality and daytime functioning. |
| Gurwitch, Robin (PhD) Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Program Coordinator, National Center for School Crisis |
| Dr. Robin Gurwitch, a Clinical Psychologist, is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. There, Dr. Gurwitch is the Program Coordinator for the National Center for School Crisis and Bereavement, which is devoted to supporting, training, and enhancing the ability of school personnel to understand and effectively respond to the needs of children after a crisis or loss. She received her doctorate in Clinical/Medical Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Since the bombing in Oklahoma City in 1995, Dr. Gurwitch has devoted much time to understanding the impact of trauma and disaster on children. She has served on state and national committees and task forces focusing on trauma, disaster, terrorism, and violence, and co-authored a treatment manual for use with young children after a trauma. As an active American Red Cross volunteer, she helped the American Red Cross develop materials related to terrorism and disaster for use in schools and for disaster mental health training and training in Psychological First Aid as well as a course for families coping with deployment. She served on the APA’s task force on resilience and is a member of their Disaster Response Network. She was actively involved in training with school personnel and mental health professionals following the series of hurricanes in Florida in 2004 and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Dr. Gurwitch is a member of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) cadre of experts on disaster mental health. In a collaborative project with colleagues and the CDC, she co-authored a guidebook for community resilience in the face of disaster with a focus on children and families. She has worked with the Education Directorate of the Department of Defense/Pentagon to develop materials for families and children whose parents are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dr. Gurwitch was recently asked to Chair the APA Presidential Task Force on the Psychological Needs of US Military Service Members and Their Families. |
| Hembree, Elizabeth (PhD) Assistant Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania |
| Dr. Elizabeth Hembree is Assistant Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Delaware in 1990. Dr. Hembree’s research and clinical work has been primarily focused on the psychological impact of trauma, the treatment of individuals with trauma-related disorders, and the dissemination of cognitive behavioral treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder. She has been Director of Clinical Training in the Center for the Treatment & Study of Anxiety at University of Pennsylvania for the past nine years, and has provided numerous workshop trainings in assessment and cognitive behavioral treatment of PTSD both in the US and abroad. Dr. Hembree is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS) and served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Traumatic Stress and Journal of Anxiety Disorders. She has published over 40 articles and book chapters and has co-authored two books. Dr. Hembree’s expertise in trauma and PTSD has benefited the US Department of Veterans Affairs in the goal of training mental health workers to provide effective, evidenced based treatments to men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as veterans of prior wars. She and Dr. Edna Foa are currently engaged in a two-year program of training clinicians working in VA hospitals and clinics across the nation to use Prolonged Exposure (PE; the treatment program for PTSD that was developed at the CTSA) throughout the VA health system. |
| Koffman, Robert (MD, MPH) Captain, Medical Corp, US Navy; Combat and Operational Stress Control Consultant, Director of Deployment Health, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Washington, DC |
| A Subject Matter Expert in deployed mental health, Captain (Dr.) Robert Koffman’s dedication to improve the delivery of mental health care in operational settings is noteworthy. Staffing one of the first naval Combat Stress Centers in Operation Desert Storm seventeen years ago, Dr. Koffman has been providing behavioral health care services for Sailors and Marines in a multitude of operational settings: Mc Murdo Station, Antarctica, (Operation Deep Freeze); deployed to the Persian Gulf while embarked aboard an aircraft carrier; and most recently, the Al Anbar Province, Iraq. As a former Division Psychiatrist, Captain Koffman helped champion Combat Stress Control and Readiness (OSCAR); moreover, in the capacity as the first Combat Stress Control Consultant (I MEF) for OIF – 1, he laid the groundwork for creation of a Naval Medical COSC Consultant. As a passionate advocate for increasing access of non-stigmatizing psychological services, Dr. Koffman is the representative for the Department of the Navy Line of Action for Psychological Health. With significant experience in operational mental health (now totaling six different combat deployments), Dr. Koffman was part of the DoD/VA Blue Ribbon panel that crafted the current Acute Stress Disorder (ASD)/Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Clinical Practice Guidelines. Captain Koffman demonstrates a keen interest in psychiatric epidemiology. In 2004, he co-authored a landmark study on the psychiatric sequelae of combat duty in Iraq (Hoge et. Al.). Currently, Dr. Koffman continues his research as a Navy collaborator and investigator to the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. |
| Linkh, David (PhD, MSW, LCSW-R) Major, BSC, US Air Force; Mental Health Flight Commander, 579th Medical Operations Squadron, Bolling Air Force Base |
| Major (Dr.) David Linkh is currently the Mental Health Flight Commander at Bolling AFB, DC. Major Linkh has worked for over 19 years in Mental Health Services with a focus on clinical practice and programming with families in crisis. Areas of expertise include child abuse and neglect and intimate partner violence as well as clinical intervention for trauma and posttraumatic stress. Current responsibilities include management of Mental Health Services including Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment (ADAPT), Family Advocacy, Drug Demand Reduction and Mental Health Clinic and clinical practice with individuals, couples families and groups. Major Linkh completed his undergraduate studies at Queens College, City University of New York in 1988 and received his Master of Social Work (MSW) degree from The Columbia University School of Social Work in 1994 specializing in clinical practice with children and families. After serving for 7 years in the USAF as Family Advocacy Officer and Chief of Social Work Services at Barksdale AFB, LA and F.E Warren AFB WY, he was selected to complete doctoral training through the Air Force Institute of Technology, Civilian Institution Program and received his Ph.D. in social work practice at Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2005. In July 2005 Major Linkh accepted a position as Chief, Family Advocacy Policy and Research at Air Force Medical Operations Agency, Office of the Surgeon General, managing a research portfolio in excess of $3M and providing research and development support and policy guidance. |
| Ogle, Alan (PhD) Major, BSC, US Air Force; Postdoctoral Fellow, Applied Psychological Science, University of West Florida, Air Force Institute of Technology |
| Major (Dr) Alan Ogle is a clinical psychologist in the United States Air Force, currently assigned for postdoctoral study at the University of West Florida. Past areas of focus include assignments as a clinician and director of mental health, substance abuse, and family violence treatment programs in the US and England. Dr. Ogle aided in development of two successful pilot programs on community alcohol prevention ("0-0-1-3") and fitness promotion, both being implemented across the Air Force. Current study focuses on psychological science applied in support of aviation and organizational performance, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and related topics. |
| Resick, Patricia (PhD) Director, Women’s Health Sciences Division, National Center for PTSD, VA Boston Healthcare System; Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University School of Medicine; Professor of Psychology, Boston University |
| Dr. Patricia A. Resick is the Director of the Women’s Health Sciences Division of the National Center for PTSD at the VA Boston Healthcare System. She is a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at Boston University. Dr. Resick received her Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Georgia. Over her career, she also served on the faculties of the University of South Dakota, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Dr. Resick has received grants from NIH, NIJ, CDC, SAMHSA, and VA to provide services and conduct research on the effects of traumatic events, particularly on women, and to develop and test therapeutic interventions for PTSD. In particular, she developed and tested Cognitive Processing Therapy, an effective short term treatment for PTSD and corollary symptoms. She has published four books and over 150 journal articles and book chapters. Dr. Resick has served on the editorial boards of eight scientific journals; was on the Board of Directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies for six years including terms as Secretary and Vice-President and is now President. She has been a Board Member for the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy (AABT) for two terms. She served as President during 2003-2004. Dr. Resick has received numerous awards for her research, including the Robert S. Laufer Memorial Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement in the Field of PTSD, from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. Currently she is leading a national VA initiative to disseminate Cognitive Processing Therapy throughout the country. |
| Sherman, Michelle (PhD) Director, Family Mental Health Program, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Oklahoma City, OK |
| Michelle D. Sherman, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and Director of the Family Mental Health Program at the Oklahoma City Veterans Affairs Medical Center. She is a researcher with the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC) and is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Sherman has worked extensively with families dealing with a wide range of traumatic experiences, including military combat, domestic violence, and sexual assault. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame and later earned her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of Missouri at Columbia. She has published over 30 scientific articles in professional journals, primarily focusing on family issues surrounding trauma and mental illness. She has also written books for teens whose parent has experienced mental illness or trauma. She recently co-chaired the American Psychological Association's Presidental Task Force on Military Deployment Services for Youth, Families and Service Members. |