2023-24 Award Recipients

Jessica Cooper, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Associate Program Director for the Psychiatry Residency Research Track and Assistant Director of the Translational Research in Affective Disorders Laboratory. Dr. Cooper uses neuroimaging, behavioral tasks and computational modeling methods to study individual differences in motivation and decision making, focusing on the effects of aging, stress and psychopathology. Her recent work has examined transdiagnostic differences in cost-benefit decision making and neurobiological mechanisms of stress-induced anhedonia in individuals with depression and has been published in journals such as Nature Communications, Schizophrenia Bulletin and Molecular Psychiatry. She is currently supported by a K01 career development award from NIMH to investigate elevated inflammation and altered glutamatergic functioning as transdiagnostic mediators of stress-induced anhedonia.

Jennifer Stevens, PhD is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, where she co-directs the Grady Trauma Project, a large collaborative research group focused on the social and neurobiological consequences of traumatic stress. An expert in functional MRI, Dr. Stevens has systematically built a program of research focused on the mental health consequences of trauma among women. She has quickly become a leader both at Emory and internationally in advancing our brain-based understanding of trauma-related psychopathology, particularly in the context of civilian trauma and women’s risk for posttraumatic stress disorder. Notably, she has served as Co-Director of the Grady Trauma Project since August 2019, and has led national initiatives in trauma neuroimaging including directing the neuroimaging core for the AURORA collaborative network and Co-Chair of ENIGMA-PTSD. Dr. Stevens has routinely published exciting findings in high quality journals, and her laboratory has received continuous support from the NIH, DoD, VA and others. A prolific scholar, she has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, and her work has been awarded by a number of professional societies including the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, Society of Biological Psychiatry and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Rebecca Schneider, PhD, is an assistant professor and licensed clinical psychologist in the Child and Adolescent Mood Program (CAMP) within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She serves as the Director of the Child OCD Program at Emory (COPE), a telehealth-based intensive outpatient program for youth with OCD. Dr. Schneider is deeply involved in several national service organizations, focusing on enhancing training and access to acceptance-based interventions for OCD. She co-founded and leads a Special Interest Group (SIG) for OCD within the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS) and another SIG for acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) within the International OCD Foundation (IOCDF). These SIGs have introduced several initiatives that reduce barriers to educational opportunities, including a monthly didactic series featuring talks on ACT and OCD, a peer consultation group and the development of a website with ACT-consistent resources and training materials. Beyond her professional organization roles, Dr. Schneider is also dedicated to community engagement. She serves as a session leader at the IOCDF Kids Camp and the Faith and OCD conference annually and helped create a summer camp for anxiety at Emory, providing many families with their first exposure to evidence-based treatment. Additionally, she has increased awareness and understanding of OCD, anxiety and misophonia through podcasts, blogs, support groups and a Project ECHO series. 

Kallio Hunnicutt-Ferguson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Senior Psychologist, Associated Assistant Professor with Emory University, College of Arts and Sciences, a Prevention Specialist with the Center for Maternal Substance Abuse and Child Development and Director of Psychology Practicum Program in the Department. She is board certified in Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy. She has been actively engaged in service in the department since joining the faculty in 2017. She has been a member of the women's faculty subcommittee since 2018, and co-chair of this committee since July 2022. She is also a member of the department's Diversity Leaders Committee and was an active member of the Faculty Development Committee from 2018-2024. She also recently joined the Department's Postdoctoral Fellowship Steering Committee and is a member of the Emory Alliance for Women in Medicine and Science (EAWiMS). Regionally, she serves on the Georgia Psychological Association’s (GPA) Committee on Academic Affairs, as well as the GPA Annual Meeting Committee. She has served on several regional advisory boards relevant to her expertise in women's health and substance use disorders, including for Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Maternal Substance Abuse Course, as a member of The Georgia Health Policy Center Technical Assistance Team, Treatment and Recovery Workgroup and as a Member of the Gwinnett Technical College Nursing Sciences Advisory Committee. Nationally, Dr. Hunnicutt-Ferguson is a member of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) United, part of their Diversity and Equity Workgroup and co-chairs this workgroup’s Learning and Education subcommittee.

Laura Watkins, PhD, ABPP, Assistant Professor, is a clinical psychologist and Associate Director of Substance Use Services at the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program (EHVP), which serves post-9/11 veterans and service members. Dr. Watkins developed the Healthy Behavior track within EHVP, which provides services to patients with comorbid substance use problems. This track meets an important need among the EHVP population, which often uses substances to avoid or cope with trauma memories and reminders. In her clinical work, Dr. Watkins uses evidence-based treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), to treat posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and substance use problems in the EHVP Intensive Outpatient Program. Dr. Watkins is also active in conducting research aimed at optimizing treatment for those with comorbid PTSD and substance use disorders. Dr. Watkins enjoys her role as an educator and is enthusiastic about providing training in evidence-based treatment as a supervisor for psychiatry residents and EHVP psychology trainees. 

Rachel Ammirati, PhD, ABPP is a clinical psychologist based in the HIV Behavioral Health Services program at the Grady Ponce de Leon Center. Board certified in behavioral and cognitive psychology, her clinical work focuses primarily on providing behavioral health intervention aimed at supporting patient retention in HIV care, promoting medical adherence with the aim of optimizing HIV-related health outcomes and maximizing psychological and emotional well-being. In carrying out her clinical responsibilities, she distinguishes herself as an extraordinary clinician who practices in accordance with the highest evidence-based practice standards. Dr. Ammirati brings a palpable commitment and passion to her work, giving her all to ensure that patients receive the highest quality of care. Indeed, her patients frequently comment on Dr. Ammirati’s empathy, warmth, genuineness, clinical knowledge and skill in helping them to surmount formidable medical, social and emotional challenges and enhance their sense of self-efficacy and well-being. Importantly, she approaches her work from a stance of cultural humility while also respecting and celebrating diverse ways of being. Dr. Ammirati is a fierce advocate for her patients, routinely going above and beyond to ensure that they’re treated equitably within the healthcare system, have access to needed services and resources and are afforded every opportunity to thrive. Dr. Ammirati’s overall clinical effectiveness is demonstrated by her remarkable capacity to empower her patients to maximize their overall potential for emotional well-being and attainment of health-related goals.

Abigail Powers Lott, PhD, ABPP is a board-certified psychologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She is also Co-Director of the Grady Trauma Project, a large collaborative research program focused on the understanding how traumatic stress impacts health and wellbeing within urban low socioeconomically resourced and minoritized communities. Dr. Lott is an accomplished clinical scientist and a dedicated research and clinical mentor to trainees across developmental stages and diverse career paths, including undergraduate and graduate students, medical students, MD residents, PhD postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty. A substantial part of Dr. Lott’s mentoring occurs as part of her role as Director of Treatment Research and Education at the Grady Trauma Project, where she studies psychological and biological mechanisms of risk linking interpersonal trauma exposure to adverse health outcomes across the lifespan and generations and translates findings into transdiagnostic clinical interventions for marginalized populations. She leads educational activities for the Grady Trauma Project’s large, interdisciplinary clinical research program, supporting general research and clinical training of more than 50 students each year and aiding trainees in their own independent research projects, publications, and grants. Part of Dr. Lott’s dedication to mentorship includes an emphasis on increasing access to quality research experiences for marginalized students and promoting a more diverse next generation of scientists and practitioners.

Andrew M. Sherrill, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a practicing clinical psychologist at the Emory Healthcare Veterans Program (EHVP) and the Emory Healthcare Adult OCD Program. Trained as a scientist-practitioner, Dr. Sherrill aims for his research, clinical and education efforts to mutually inform and enhance each other. The central focus of his career in academic medicine is understanding how to best support clinicians in learning and sustaining exposure-based therapies for anxiety- and trauma-related disorders. As a clinical supervisor to the department’s residents and postdoctoral fellows, Dr. Sherrill takes a collaborative and developmentally-appropriate approach to not just enhancing fidelity to protocols but the trainee’s own professional identity and passion for lifelong learning. Dr. Sherrill also enjoys the role of instructor within the contexts of continuing education classes, multi-day clinical workshops and departmental didactics (e.g., residency, predoctoral internship and the EHVP training program). Lastly, he has also served as the training director of the Emory University Prolonged Exposure (PE) Consultant Training Program, a rigorous “consultation-of-consultation” model that has trained dozens of expert PE consultants across the country. This training program aims to build and sustain a network of PE consultants in diverse settings in order to support hundreds of community-based clinicians in maintaining strong implementation of evidence-based treatment for PTSD. In all his roles, Dr. Sherrill is enthusiastic about the knowledge he shares, and he aims to make educational content interesting, accessible and actionable. Beyond modeling an effective style as a supervisor, instructor and training director, Dr. Sherrill actively looks for opportunities and platforms for trainees to grow in service and education domains. He is excited to help trainees discover how they will impact their fields. His professional position is indebted to his own excellent mentors – from undergraduate courses to his early career – and he strives to pay it forward with all trainees he is privileged to serve.

Jordan Cattie, PhD is an Associate Professor and clinical psychologist who is committed to mentorship and fostering the passions of the trainees she works with through developing new elective opportunities and partnerships. She mentors and supervises trainees in the Emory-based Postdoctoral Residency Consortium, the Child, Adolescent & Young Adult Psychology Internship Program, the Emory Psychiatry and Med-Psych programs, the Emory Clinic/Adult IOP doctoral practicum (GSU, Emory, Auburn, and UGA), the GSU social work intern program and the SCOPE (Scholars Committed to Opportunities in Psychological Education) Program. She also serves as a mentor for faculty within the department. In addition to providing training and supervision within her scope of clinical practice, she invites trainees to engage in program development, scholarship and professional presentations, community service and advocacy that aligns with their interests and values. She is committed to providing culturally responsive mentorship to trainees from a wide range of racial, ethnic, gender, sexuality, religious and disability backgrounds, and continually learning as a team about broader contexts for mental health, population health and lived experience perspectives. She prioritizes empathy, humility and facilitating access to care and reducing barriers within systems. She is always looking for ways to facilitate opportunities for connection and enrichment for mentees, and is grateful for the opportunity to be a part of their professional journeys. 

Marianne Celano, PhD, ABPP is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine, and Director of the Emory Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) Program. She is a past president of the Society for Couple and Family Psychology (Division 43) and the American Board of Couple and Family Psychology and she is currently a specialty board representative of the Board of Trustees for the American Board of Professional Psychology. Her scholarship is in the areas of family therapy training and family interventions for child traumatic stress and pediatric asthma. Dr. Celano is the author of a textbook on systemic interventions for children with emotional and behavioral disorders, and has co-authored three children’s books published by Magination Press, an imprint of the American Psychological Association. She provides clinical services primarily to children and families, and directs training in family therapy and PCIT. Dr. Celano is currently mentoring over ten faculty in the department.

Telsie A. Davis, PhD, identifies as an African American woman who was born, raised and educated in Atlanta. She has a loving husband, four remarkable children and a feisty painted turtle. Dr. Davis reports that witnessing and benefiting from the power of Black family members, neighbors and community leaders identifying and organizing against oppression due to racism, sexism and classism fostered a resolve to create spaces that are diverse, inclusive and equitable for all folx and groups marginalized in society. She has worked towards that mission in every place she has subsisted. Most recently, this includes co-developing and co-directing the Diversity Rotation within the Atlanta VA’s APA-Accredited Postdoctoral and Predoctoral Psychology Training Program; spearheading the chartering of the Atlanta VA’s Mental Health Service Line DEI Committee and developing the Model of Cultural Equity, a framework used for training clinicians to identify, eliminate and prevent mental health treatment disparities and marginalization in psychological treatment. Dr. Davis shared it was a privilege being nominated and an honor being selected as the recipient of the 2024 Nadine J. Kaslow Excellence in DEI Award. She notes this recognition helps strengthen her resolve to continue working towards the elimination of mental health treatment disparities and marginalization so that all patients have a fair opportunity to benefit from treatment at their maximum potential.

Charles A. Zapf, MD finds his Adjunct Faculty career has comprised two complementary roles, one in academia and theory, the other in the community and practice with each informing the other. He has taught and supervised Fellows in the Child/Adolescent program and taught in the Adult program and elsewhere in the University. He served as Clinical Psychiatrist for the Schizophrenia Treatment Program at Emory, part of an NIMH study. Beyond Emory, he joined the Family Committee in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, which led to a presentation at the national meeting on Short Term Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Locally, he served as President of the Georgia Council on Child and Adolescent Psychiatry for the most active years in its history. At Emory he reinvigorated the psychoanalytic movie series, "Movie Mania," and served as coordinator for seven years. The series provided a place where lay people could learn about mental health from experts from Emory Medicine, Arts and Sciences, as well as Morehouse, UAB, the Goethe Institute, Atlanta journalism and arts. Audiences grew yearly to over 100 each evening. Also at Emory he presented to the Eighth Annual History of Medicine Conference “Why War? When Einstein Wrote to Freud" and beyond Emory he has lectured to organizations interested in mental health, including GAMFT, Georgia DHR and Lifelong Learning. He has travelled internationally, twice to Haiti in general medicine and once to Ghana with Dr. Thad Ulzen, Chair of Psychiatry at UAB/Tuscaloosa, and reports seeing life in the Third World changed his perspective forever. His supervision at Emory and recently an additional teaching position at Phoenix (Arizona) Children’s Hospital have been important roles. Since his own Fellowship, he has seen psychiatry move toward faster and less expensive treatment. But while Fellows now are well trained in psychopharmacology and more comfortable with technology, the needs of children haven’t changed. Providing an understanding of theory as it applies to children, and communicating with them, be it through play, drawing, and even electronics is what he has worked to pass along. The future of healthcare is challenging, but just as his mentors knew that the only certainty they could give was not with facts but with a compass, he hopes to have passed those values along to his Fellows.

Barbara Lopes Cardozo, MD, has turned her lifelong commitment to humanitarian work toward supporting the refugee and asylum seeker communities of Atlanta by supervising Emory’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences residents at the Clarkston Community Health Center (CCHC). She has volunteered as a supervising physician and educator for residents, as well as a culturally sensitive and attuned advocate and provider for CCHC’s patients. Dr. Lopes Cardozo is one of the founding members of Doctors without Borders (MSF) – Holland, winner of the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. During a decade at MSF, she carried out dozens of field missions with direct on-the-ground involvement, responding to humanitarian medical emergencies in places as varied and challenging as Somalia, Gaza, Uganda, Haiti and Nicaragua, in multiple crisis situations. Later, she worked for almost 25 years at the CDC, where she built CDC’s mental health and psychosocial program in humanitarian emergencies from the ground up. She traveled to countries and regions affected by war, conflict and natural disasters, developing and working on mental health programs (e.g., Afghanistan, Kosovo, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, Israel, Jordan, Chechnya, Sri Lanka). From 2014 to 2020, Dr Lopes Cardozo volunteered weekly clinical psychiatry services through Emory’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the International Medical Center at Grady Hospital in Atlanta, providing psychiatric care to international patients and refugees. In addition, she has conducted psychiatric assessments for asylum seekers presenting their cases to the legal system. Dr. Lopes Cardozo brings with her a breadth of knowledge and skills informed by extensive work in mental health in humanitarian settings. She has served as a role model for psychiatry residents in the global mental health track. She has also been an asset to the community via her involvement in the Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice Committee of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.