Speakers

Ron Acierno, PhD

Dr. Ron Acierno is Professor and Vice Chair for Veterans Affairs and Executive Director of the Trauma and Resilience Center, Faillace Department of Psychiatry, at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He also serves as a VA Senior Research Scientist at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Healthcare System in Charleston, South Carolina. Dr. Acierno has published over 200 research articles and has received funding from the Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institute of Justice, National Institute on Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, The Retirement Research Foundation, The Archstone Foundation, and the Offices of the Attorney General of South Carolina and Texas, among others.  His diverse areas of research include telemedicine, PTSD, elder abuse, and disaster-affected populations. In addition to his academic and administrative work, he offers consultation to military, VA, police, fire, and chaplaincy services, as well as primary care clinics and other agencies that serve victims of violence and abuse.

Brooke Fina, LCSW, BCD

Brooke A. Fina is an Associate Professor within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UT Health San Antonio and a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She is the Director of Behavioral Health Training Initiatives for the STRONG STAR Training Initiative. She is a clinician, trainer, and facilitates the implementation of PTSD and suicide clinical and non-clinical programs. She provides training and consultation in Prolonged Exposure and Written Exposure Therapy for PTSD, and Crisis Response Planning for suicide prevention. She has consulted with 100s of mental health providers and community organizations regarding the successful implementation of PTSD treatment programs, consulted with managed care entities, and published outcomes in peer-reviewed journals.

Brittany Hall-Clark, PhD

Dr. Brittany N. Hall-Clark is an Associate Professor within the Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She also serves as the Director of Inclusive Behavioral Health Advancement for the STRONG STAR Training Initiative (SSTI). She is a consultant for SSTI as well as the National Center for PTSD Consultation Program. Her clinical specialties include trauma, nightmares, insomnia, sleep and anxiety. For 8 years, she worked at the Fort Hood (now named Fort Cavazos) site of STRONG STAR—a multidisciplinary PTSD research consortium—as a cognitive-behavioral research therapist for several randomized clinical trials focused on PTSD and related conditions in active duty military personnel and veterans. She has been certified as a Master Prolonged Exposure clinician and Quality-Rated Cognitive Processing Therapy provider.  She has also been trained in CBT for Insomnia and Nightmares as well as Cognitive Behavioral Conjoint Therapy (CBCT) for PTSD. Dr. Hall-Clark is passionate about diversity and culturally responsive assessment and treatment, evidenced by her focus on cultural considerations in treatment, provision of diversity training to graduate students and continuing education for professionals, and culturally oriented publications and presentations. Dr. Hall-Clark also practices privately at InSight Psychology and Behavioral Health Services in Pflugerville, TX.

Margaret Harrell, PhD

Dr. Margaret “Meg” Harrell is the Chief Program Officer at the Bob Woodruff Foundation. She formerly served the Obama Administration as the Executive Director of Force Resiliency, within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where she was responsible for sexual assault prevention and response; suicide prevention; diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity; personnel safety; as well as for Department of Defense collaboration with the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Dr. Harrell spent 25 years at the RAND Corporation, and her research portfolio includes approximately 70 publications pertaining to military manpower and personnel, military families’ quality of life, and veterans’ issues. Concurrent with her time at RAND, Dr. Harrell served as a presidential appointee to the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force, 2013-2014. From July 2011 to August 2012, Dr. Harrell served as a Senior Fellow and founding Director of the Military, Veterans, and Society Program at the Center for a New American Security. She is a prior voting member of the Army Science Board, and she has also briefed international audiences, testified before Congress, spoken extensively at conferences, and guest lectured at the United States Military Academy. She holds a BA with Distinction from the University of Virginia, an MS in Systems Analysis and Management from the George Washington University, and a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Virginia, where her dissertation focused on the role expectations for Army spouses.

Philip Held, PhD

Dr. Philip Held is a licensed clinical psychologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Rush University Medical Center. Dr. Held is also the Research Director of the Road Home Program: National Center of Excellence for Veterans and Their Families at Rush and Chair of the Warrior Care Network® – Network Evaluation Committee, where he leads various research initiatives to improve clinical care for service members and veterans, as well as their families. Dr. Held is a health services researcher who has been continuously funded since 2015. He is passionate about innovating mental health care treatment, especially as it relates to PTSD and other trauma-related disorders. His research focuses on examining the efficiency and effectiveness of evidence-based treatments for PTSD and other trauma-related disorders. Dr. Held’s goal is to develop briefer and more accessible treatments so more people can benefit from them. Additionally, his research aims to identify ways to help those who do not respond to existing treatments. Dr. Held’s research combines clinical treatment with advanced analytics, such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, with the goal of being able to further tailor treatments and match individuals with the type and length of treatment in which they are most likely to succeed given their background and experiences.

Melba A. Hernandez-Tejada, PhD, DHA

Dr. Hernandez-Tejada is an Associate Professor affiliated with the Trauma and Resilience Center at the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She is currently interested in increasing collaborative efforts through inter-professional, integrative approaches to treating mental health conditions following traumatic event exposure in older adult and veteran populations. Specifically, Dr. Hernandez-Tejada has received funding for these endeavors from the Violence Against Women Act and Victims of Crime Act funding programs, as well as from the Department of Defense. In addition, Dr. Hernandez-Tejada engages in practice-level efforts where she is raising awareness among providers regarding adequate screening, identification, diagnosis and referral of older adults who are victims of abuse, coupled with training and provision of evidence-based treatment options for these older adults.  She is also researching treatments for highly comorbid conditions in veterans such as pain and PTSD, and she is examining ways to improve treatment engagement and completion by applying social support to specific evidence-based therapy components such as in vivo exposure. She has collaborated and consulted regularly with local, national, and international entities on these topics.

Paul Holtzheimer, MD

Dr. Paul Holtzheimer is Deputy Director for Research at the National Center for PTSD, Professor of Psychiatry and Surgery at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and Staff Psychiatrist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and the White River Junction VA Medical Center. He also directs the National PTSD Brain Bank. He has served on the Council of the Society of Biological Psychiatry and Board of Directors for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. He also is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Holtzheimer’s clinical and research interests include developing better interventions for PTSD, depression and related disorders, especially for patients with treatment-resistant and comorbid illness. He has expertise in brain imaging and brain stimulation therapies. A primary aim of his research program is to better understand the neural circuitry of treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders and to use this information to develop and advance novel treatment approaches, with a particular emphasis on focal brain stimulation therapies. An author on over 100 publications in psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery and neuroimaging, he has received research funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and multiple non-profit foundations.

Stefanie T. LoSavio, PhD, ABPP

Dr. Stefanie T. LoSavio is a board-certified psychologist, clinical trainer, and research investigator focused on increasing access to high-quality PTSD treatment. She serves as an Assistant Professor with the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and as Director of Research & Innovation with the STRONG STAR Training Initiative. In her leadership role with the STRONG STAR Training Initiative, Dr. LoSavio works with hundreds of mental health providers each year, providing training in evidence-based, trauma-focused treatments such as Cognitive Processing Therapy and Written Exposure Therapy. Dr. LoSavio is co-author of the award-winning self-help book, Getting Unstuck from PTSD: Using Cognitive Processing Therapy to Guide Your Recovery, aimed at helping people process their traumatic events and experience recovery. In her research, Dr. LoSavio studies adaptations to interventions and provider training to increase the reach, effectiveness, and efficiency of PTSD care. She is particularly interested in understanding how to personalize type and dose of intervention to maximize individual response.

Robert I. Miller, MD, MBA, MSS, FAAP, FACHE, FACPE (Lt Gen, U.S. Air Force, Retired)

Dr. Robert Miller has recently joined The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio as director of the Military Health Institute, where he works to enhance the institution’s military health research, education, and clinical activities for the benefit of service members, veterans, and their families. He brings tremendous experience to this position, having recently retired from a 39-year career with the U.S. Air Force that culminated in the rank of Lieutenant General and positions as Surgeon General for the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force. Previously, he held such positions as Director of Medical Operations for the U.S. Air Force and, before that, as Commander of the Air Force Medical Operations Agency. A medical surgeon, Dr. Miller is board certified in both general pediatrics and developmental pediatrics and is qualified in aerospace medicine. He has served as the chief of the medical staff at the military treatment facility and major command level, as a squadron commander, group commander, MAJCOM command surgeon, and as a combatant commander command surgeon.

Sara Mithani, PhD, RN

Dr. Sara Mithani is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her research focuses on advancing the understanding of sleep and mental health disorders through the integration of ‘omics’ methodologies (such as transcriptomics and proteomics), phenotypic presentations, and clinical symptom assessments. The goal of her work is to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of these disorders, establish personalized treatment paradigms, and improve prevention and diagnosis. She is currently a funded investigator with support from the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Rockefeller University.

Alan Peterson, PhD, ABPP (Lt Col, U.S. Air Force, Retired)

Dr. Alan Peterson is a Professor and the Chief of the Division of Behavioral Medicine within the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Joe R. & Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He is a board-certified clinical health psychologist, the Krus Endowed Chair in Psychiatry, and the Associate Director of Research for the Military Health Institute. He is also a Professor in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Peterson is the Director of the STRONG STAR Consortium and the Consortium to Alleviate PTSD, which includes over 150 research collaborators and 50 institutions worldwide. He served previously as the Chair of the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Clinical Health Psychology Postdoctoral Fellowship Program at the U.S. Air Force’s Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio. Dr. Peterson retired from the Air Force in 2005 after 21 years of active duty service that included deployments in support of Operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. He has clinical and research expertise in the areas of behavioral medicine, psychological trauma, and resiliency. He has published 7 books and over 385 scientific manuscripts, and he has given over 700 presentations and invited addresses at national and international meetings.

Kristi E. Pruiksma, PhD, DBSM

Dr. Kristi E. Pruiksma is an Associate Professor and licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. She is a Diplomat for Behavioral Sleep Medicine, and her work focuses on clinical research and dissemination of evidence-based treatments for insomnia, nightmares, suicide risk, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Her work has been funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs to test and develop a web-based provider training for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I, cbtiweb.org), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Nightmares (CBT-N; cbtnightmares.org) and Brief Behavioral Therapy for Suicide Prevention (BCBT). Another line of Dr. Pruiksma’s research involves leadership of a randomized clinical trial examining the treatment of insomnia among active duty military service members experiencing symptoms following mild traumatic brain injury. She also supports randomized clinical trials examining the treatment of insomnia, nightmares, and PTSD in accelerated formats for fire service members and active duty service members. Dr. Pruiksma’s research has clinical implications by informing treatment guidelines and increasing access to training in evidence-based therapies.

David Rozek, PhD, ABPP

Dr. David Rozek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where he also serves as the Senior Scientific Advisor for Face the Fight and the Director of Strategy and Evaluation at the STRONG STAR Training Initiative. Dr. Rozek earned his PhD from the University of Notre Dame and completed his residency at the Orlando VA Medical Center. Before his current roles, Dr. Rozek was the Director of the National Center of Excellence for First Responder Behavioral Health at UCF RESTORES, University of Central Florida, and served in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Utah with a secondary appointment as the Director of Training at the National Center for Veterans Studies. Dr. Rozek’s research and clinical expertise encompass cognitive and behavioral therapies for suicide, PTSD, and depression. He is highly regarded for his work in training clinicians, medical professionals, peer support specialists, and mental health allies on best practices for working with individuals at risk for suicide. As an active researcher, Dr. Rozek focuses on the real-world scaling and implementation of mental health interventions.

Fenne Smits, PhD

Dr. Fenne Smits is an Assistant Professor at the Brain Research and Innovation Centre of the Dutch Ministry of Defence. Dr. Smits has a special interest in the brain’s response to stress and innovative treatments, in particular in relation to PTSD, anxiety and aggression problems. Her main research topics are sleep and brain stimulation, with a focus on cognition and electrophysiological brain activity. On the topic of sleep, Dr. Smits is involved in a collaborative study with the STRONG STAR Consortium about brain activity characteristics of insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and the combined diagnosis (COMISA).

Stephanie Y. Wells, PhD

Dr. Stephanie Wells is a clinical research psychologist at the Durham VA Health Care System, an investigator at the Durham VA’s Center of Innovation to Accelerate Discovery and Practice Transformation (ADAPT), and an affiliate faculty member at the VA Mid-Atlantic (VISN-6) Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC). Her research broadly focuses on improving the effectiveness of and engagement in evidence-based psychotherapies (EBPs) for veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder. Her research has also examined how PTSD EBPs impact quality of life and functioning, as well as commonly co-occurring issues, such as problematic anger and sexual functioning. She is also interested in the use of complementary and integrative approaches for the treatment of PTSD, particularly for commonly residual symptoms, such as hyperarousal symptoms. Her current work is funded by the VA’s Health Services Research.