DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHIATRY

Summer is typically warm and bright in the city of Chicago. Here in the Department of Psychiatry, we warmly welcome all of the bright people that are in our midst – some newly joining us and others who are already well acclimated to the Department and to UIC and UI Health!

We have several new faculty joining our department. Please see the pictures below. For those that have recently joined us or about to do so, we are thrilled that you have chosen to be here. You are now a part of a tremendous mission, and will participate in and/or observe all aspects of the academic, clinical, and research areas of our department and the university. You have our very best wishes as you adapt to and get settled in your new roles. 

Dr. Cooper and his team recruited a very strong class of incoming class of PGY 1 residents (pictures are also included below). They will be joining us in a couple of weeks.

The Erminio Costa Lecture was delivered very well by Charles Nemeroff, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Dell Medical School.  We are planning for both the Carl Bell Lecture and our Research Extravaganza in the fall.

We are living through “interesting times” nationally. Thank you to everyone who continues to make a positive difference in our academic, clinical, research, and support endeavors during this period of extreme uncertainty.  Each of you – faculty, staff and trainees alike - are integral to ensuring that all that we do here is the best it can be as we approach each day with its new challenges. Your energy is incredible, your tenacity is ever-present, and your outcomes are amazing. You are so appreciated. Much appreciated.

We will get through this period together as a team/a family.

May you each enjoy a wonderful and productive summer!

Best wishes,

Anand Kumar, MD, MHA

UIC Department of Psychiatry Graduation!!!

Congratulations Graduates!!!

Dr. Trennepohl graduated with a BS from Davidson College and an MD and MPH from the University of North Carolina. He then completed his psychiatry residency at UIC and served as the chief resident of inpatient psychiatry in his final year. His professional interests include psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapy, gender-affirming care, and medical education. Dr. Trennepohl will be an Associate Program Director for the psychiatry residency program. Clinically, he will run the resident gender and sexuality clinic, have an extensive psychodynamic psychotherapy practice, and he will be significantly involved in     psychodynamic psychotherapy education and supervision. He will also join the electroconvulsive therapy service and collaborative care with Mile Square.

Dr. Schumacher is a graduating resident from Rush University Medical Center. She completed a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience at Temple University and received her medical degree from Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine. During residency training she pursued electives in Assertive Community Treatment, women’s mental health, and served as Chief Resident of Inpatient Psychiatry. Her clinical interests include severe and persistent mental illness, first-break psychosis, women’s mental health and public psychiatry. She will be an attending on the Women’s Mental Health inpatient service and will be a core attending for the Anchor Point clinic and work with Dr. Pal to further develop services for patients with psychosis.

Dr. Pal is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio. She attended undergraduate school at Miami University before moving to St. Louis, Missouri where she completed medical school and residency training at Washington University. She is very excited to be joining the faculty at UIC. Dr. Pal will be serving as an inpatient attending on the psychosis team and she will be a core attending for the Anchor Point clinic and work with Dr. Schumacher to further develop services for patients with psychosis.

Dr. Phillips is an adult neuropsychologist and will provide evaluation services within the neuropsychology program. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Criminal Justice from UIC and his master’s degree in counseling (Health Psychology focus) and Psy.D.in Clinical Psychology from The Chicago School. He completed his Clinical Psychology Internship at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Healthcare Center and will be completing his Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Neuropsychology at UIC in August 2025. His research focus includes understanding the neuropsychological sequelae of adult ADHD, psychometrics, subjective versus objective neurocognitive outcomes, and social determinants of health and its impact on cognition and aging.

Dr. Valencia grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry at Loyola University Chicago. He received his medical degree from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and completed his general psychiatry residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is completing his Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychiatry (BNNP) fellowship and has plans on obtaining board certification in Brain Injury Medicine. His professional interests include research, interventional psychiatry (i.e., ECT, TMS, DBS), functional neurological disorders, and    catatonia. Dr. Valencia’s clinical work will be in the areas of neuropsychiatry and neuromodulation. Specifically, he will work in the resident neuropsychiatry clinic, the electroconvulsive therapy and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation services, the inpatient 8E med-psych service, and the consultation-liaison services.

Dr. Romba received her undergraduate degree from Elmhurst University and her medical  degree from Rush Medical College. She completed residency in adult psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center, followed by fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at Lurie Children’s Hospital. Following completion of training, she joined the faculty at Lurie Children’s Hospital/Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and served for seven years as an attending physician in outpatient child psychiatry, collaborative care with community-based pediatricians, and led a teaching clinic for fellows in pediatric anxiety disorders. Her areas of interest are medical student education and mentorship, graduate medical education, early childhood mental health and pediatric depression and anxiety disorders. Dr. Romba will re-establish the Young Child Clinic as its director, supervise the first year Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow Medication Clinic, supervise in the Pediatric Stress and Anxiety Disorders Clinic, and follow patients in the outpatient Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic.

All youth in care of the state of Illinois are required to have IDCFS consent for any psychotropic   medication they are prescribed. There is a new user-friendly website called the IDCFS Guardian  Consent Portal designed for the electronic submission of consent requests for youth in care. The online portal allows for easier request submission and more efficient consent processing, enhancing the overall care and support for Illinois youth. The new online CFS 431-A can be found at the  guardianconsent.dcfs.illinois.gov by selecting CFS 431-A: Psychotropic Medication. Simply read the instructions, fill out the form fields through the portal and click submit. Users will receive a confirmation email with a copy of the completed CFS 431-A Psychotropic Medication request form. Other Guardian’s Office consent forms are available in the portal as well. While not required at this time, in the future requests will no longer be accepted via fax or email so try the portal today!

ACCESS for Mental Health Lab members collaborate with the Chicago Park District to implement workshops supporting staff health and wellness. Melanie Tran, MA. Elyse Shenberger, PhD, Margarete Wallner, MD, and Tara Mehta, PhD are working with the Chicago Park District Wellness Committee members, to create workshops focused on staff health and wellness. In Fall/Winter 2024 ACCESS for Mental Health conducted 6 sessions; they are continuing sessions quarterly at a variety of parks across the city.

Tara Mehta, PhD, UIC Psychiatry Faculty, presented, with her Chicago Park District colleague Colleen Lammel-Harmon, MPH, RD, Health & Wellness Officer, Chicago Park District, presented an overview of research in the parks describing projects from a 20 year collaboration between Dr. Mehta and the Chicago Park District . The one day summit featured presentations and spaces to collaborate for over 250 individuals from universities, community organizations, the park district, city agencies (e.g., Chicago Department of Public Health), hospitals, and neighborhood networks. 

Dr. Alex Aaronson won a new investigator award through the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology for her work on developing an iTBS treatment for veterans with TBI, impulsivity and suicidality. She was also re-elected to the board of the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

Dr. Alex Aaronson and Dr. Joey Cooper gave presentations at the annual meetings of ANPA and APA.

Members of the ListenUP Research Collaborative (PI: Dr. Tina Grieco-Calub) presented four posters at the Midwestern Psychological Association Meeting, which was held in April 2025 in Chicago. Sofiia Boiko (Psychology major at UIC), Danbi Kim (project coordinator), Hannah Kiperman (postbaccalaureate research assistant), and Zayra Chavez-Ortiz (postbaccalaureate research assistant) presented work from the lab.

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) hosted their first ever 100 Strong Event to support the mission of AFSP by bringing together 100 AFSP supporters, donors, corporate and industry leaders, legislators, elected officials, and philanthropists. Dr. Sally Weinstein was featured as the Research Spotlight to present on her AFSP-supported work, "Suicide Prevention in Youth Bipolar Disorder: What We Have Learned and Where We are Going" NBC Chicago news anchor Allison Rosati emceed the event, held at the Chicago Cut Steakhouse. 

UIC med students from all three campuses joined faculty and future physicians for a KTGF hike at Starved Rock. Big thanks to Gloria Choi and student leaders for organizing! The event fostered community, wellness, and a shared commitment to child and adolescent mental health.

Members of the MATTERS Lab have presented at multiple conferences recently.

Dr. Colleen Stiles-Shields was awarded the APA Div. 54/Society of Pediatric Psychology's Donald K. Routh Early Career Award. She was presented with the award at the 2025 Society of Pediatric Psychology Annual Conference in Phoenix, AZ.

Geri Fox, MD, MHPE received the 2025 Distinguished Service Award for UICOM-Rockford campus, where she has served as the Psychiatry Department Chair since 2018.

Geri Fox, MD, MHPE was the invited keynote commencement speaker at medical school graduation, UICOM-Rockford campus, April 25, 2025. She has served as Professor and Psychiatry Department Chair on the Rockford Campus since 2018.

Dr. Elyse Shenberger, a postdoctoral fellow, chaired her first paper symposium at Society for Research in Child Development's biennial conference in Minneapolis, along with an impressive team of Illinois researchers across institutions who shared their impressive work on understanding and preventing exclusionary discipline in Illinois early education. Elyse presented her dissertation research, funded through an SRCD dissertation award, that highlights a preschool teacher training she developed to help build teacher's emotional capacity to manage unwanted behaviors and promote inclusive classrooms.

Dr. Elyse Shenberger, a postdoctoral fellow in the MATTERS Lab, won a Student Poster Award at the Society for Pediatric Psychology's Annual Conference, for her poster titled, "Neighborhood Needs: Understanding Differing Gaps in Mental Health Delivery in Pediatric Primary, Specialty Care Based on Community Distress".

Tran, M., Terplan, M., Sharma, A., Tofighi, B. (2025, February). Addressing the Drug Overdose Epidemic: Best Practices for Opening Overdose Prevention Sites [Fact Sheet]. Eddy, S. [Ed.] Research-to-Policy Collaboration. Read more.

Tran, M., Gore, D., Ordorica, C., Moses, J., Mendez, L., & Atkins, M. (2025, June). Evaluating barriers and facilitators to social determinants of health policy implementation in the United States: A quality assessment of the research evidence. Poster accepted for the 20th Biennial Conference of the Society for Community Research and Action, Lansing, Michigan.

Al-Khayyat, R.A., Diaz, V.G., Mehta, T.G. (2025, June 7). The role of family relationships in community violence and externalizing symptoms in youth using the ABCD Study [Poster presentation]. Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (Division 53), Chicago, IL.

Eloge JC*, Cooper JJ*, Ross DA. Along Came the DSM-Melancholic Depression, the Dexamethasone Suppression Test, and How Psychiatry Lost the Brain. Biol Psychiatry. 2025 Jan 1;97(1):9-11.*co-first authorship.

Cooper JJ, Kellner CH, Gligorovic PV, Weiner RD, Prudic J, Kirov G, Braithwaite R.        Electroconvulsive Therapy Saves Lives – An Evidence-Based Response to the World Health Organization. Lancet Psychiatry. Accepted 4.14.25.

Grieco-Calub, T.M., Ilyes, Y., Ward, K.M., Clain, A.E., & Olson, J. (2025). Effect of hearing experience on preschool-aged children's eye gaze to a talker during spoken language processing. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 87, 531-544. 

Holmbeck, G. N., Clark, O., Hilderbrand, T., Kritikos, T., Psihogios, A. M., Ridosh, M., & Stiles-Shields, C. (In Press). The daily phone diary in adolescents and young adults with spina bifida: Utility and psychometric evidence. Journal of Pediatric Psychology.

Stiles-Shields, C., Reyes, K. M., Lakhtakia, T., Smith, S. R., Barnas, O. E., Gray, E. L., Krause, C. J., Kruzan, K. P., Kwasny, M. J., Mir, Z., Panjwani, S., Rothschild, S. K., Sánchez-Johnsen, L., Winquist, N. W., Lattie, E. G., Allen, N. B., Reddy, M., & Mohr, D. C. (2024). A personal sensing technology enabled service versus a digital psychoeducation control for primary care patients with depression and anxiety: A pilot randomized controlled trial. BMC Psychiatry, 24(828). doi: 10.1186/s12888-024-06284-z

Stiles-Shields, C., Bobadilla, G., Reyes, K. M., Gustafson, E. L., Lowther, M., Frisbie, C., Antognini, C., Dyer, G., MacCarthy, R., Morris, G., Touranachun, A., Wilkens, K. M., Julion, W. A., & Karnik, N. S. (2025). Digital mental health screening, feedback, and referral system for teens with  Socially Complex Needs: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial integrating the TeACH System into Pediatric Primary Care. JMIR Research Protocols, 14, e65245. doi: 10.2196/65245