Education & Training

Training overview: 

• Post-doctoral Fellowship (2020-2021), Rogers Behavioral Health (Child & Adolescent Services, Brown Deer WI)

• PhD Clinical Psychology (2020), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

• Pre-doctoral Internship (2019), Rogers Behavioral Health (Child & Adolescent Services, West Allis)

• Psychology practicum (2018-2020), Center of Behavioral Medicine, Certified DBT Clinic

• Psychology practicum (2017-2018), Rogers Memorial Hospital, Day Treatment

• B.A. Psychology (2013), University of Virginia

My Extensive Training in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based, comprehensive treatment developed by Dr. Marsha Linehan, primarily to treat chronic emotional and behavioral dysregulation, including self-harm and suicidal behaviors. DBT focuses on teaching four core modules of skills: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance (managing crises without making things worse), Emotion Regulation (understanding and changing emotional responses), and Interpersonal Effectiveness (improving relationships and communication). It is widely recognized for its effectiveness across both adolescent and adult populations.

Foundational Training at a Linehan DBT Certified Clinic

• I completed a two-year practicum at the Center for Behavioral Medicine, a Wisconsin-certified comprehensive DBT clinic offering individual and group therapy, phone coaching, and consultation team participation.

• During this time, I received extensive training from Linehan DBT Certified providers, including Dr. Kim Skerven and Neal Moglowsky, as well as Dr. Henry Boeh, who was pursuing certification.

Pre- and Post-doctoral Training at Rogers Behavioral Health

• In my pre-doctoral internship, I worked within early and late adolescent DBT PHP/IOP programs, participating in consultation teams and managing highly acute safety needs under the supervision of Dr. Kristin Miles and Dr. Nancy Goranson.

• My post-doctoral fellowship in Brown Deer involved serving as an individual and group therapist, milieu crisis consultant, and trainer for new therapists. I also taught DBT groups for tweens under the supervision of Dr. Kris Kim.

• Following my fellowship, I spent six months working across various Rogers programs at multiple levels of care, applying DBT strategies to diverse patient populations.

DBT Program Development at North Shore Center (NSC)

• In Fall 2021, I co-initiated the NSC DBT consultation team alongside collaborators Dr. Melissa Nelson and Jenny Strom.

• I co-led an adolescent program pilot during the 2021-2022 school year and am currently developing comprehensive DBT programming for early adolescents, adolescents, and adults, with a launch planned for early 2023.

• I have also been providing DBT-informed individual therapy on an outpatient basis since Fall 2020.

My Motivation for Becoming a Psychologist

I am driven by a passion for helping people navigate complex challenges. My early experiences as a residential caregiver for adults with intellectual disabilities (including some with Autism Spectrum Disorder) exposed me to the deep suffering caused by difficulties in emotional recognition, regulation, and flexible thinking. Witnessing how these pervasive difficulties inhibited individuals from reaching their full potential motivated me to seek the specialized training necessary to understand and address these challenges earlier in development.

In graduate school, I focused on assessment experiences involving complex, multi-comorbid presentations in child and adolescent clients. I became fascinated by the intricate connection between developmental cognition (such as executive functioning, attention, and learning) and intense emotional pain (anxiety, depression, and frustration). It is profoundly rewarding to alleviate distress and foster hope by providing clients and their families with clear insights into these difficulties and recommending practical, tailored ways to address their concerns. My desire to walk alongside clients as they tackle these problems led me to seek extensive intervention experience.

During my clinical training, I gained initial experience treating multi-problem presentations across both adult and youth populations, including treating youth struggling with acute urges in an intensive outpatient setting. This work emphasized the critical importance of developing emotion regulation skills. I became captivated by Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) as a comprehensive, transdiagnostic treatment for chronic emotion regulation difficulties. To ensure adherence to the model, I pursued didactic and practical training in "standard" comprehensive outpatient adult DBT in a DBT certified community clinic. More recently, I began training in comprehensive outpatient DBT for adolescents experiencing pervasive emotion dysregulation, including suicidal behavior, as I am deeply committed to helping these youth before these behavior patterns become more ingrained in adulthood.

My Research Background

I earned my Bachelor of Arts degree with Summa Cum Laude from the University of Virginia. My research there focused on the development of pretend play, theory of mind, and emotion regulation in young children (ages 3–8) in the Early Development Lab. I also assisted in research on social emotion regulation in adults, including ERP data collection, in the Virginia Affective Neuroscience Lab. I went on to earn my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. At UWM, I engaged in research examining emotion regulation, executive functioning and intellectual functioning in youth with genetic disorders including Williams Syndrome and Neurofibromatosis-1.