VISN 5 MIRECC - Research Investigators
Melanie Bennett, Ph.D.
Phone: 410-706-0722
Email: Melanie.Bennett@va.gov
Research Interests: Assessment and treatment of substance use disorders in people with serious mental illness; treatment development; tailoring evidence-based interventions for people with serious mental illness; assessment and treatment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia; treatment of young adults with schizophrenia.
Clayton Brown, Ph.D.
Phone: 410-706-1058
Email: cbrown@som.umaryland.edu
Research Interests: Longitudinal and multilevel statistical models; analysis of data from clinical trials; analysis of observational data applied machine learning.
Bob Buchanan, M.D.
Phone: 410-402-7876
Email: rbuchanan@som.umaryland.edu
Research Interests: Phenomenology of schizophrenia, with a special emphasis on negative symptoms and cognition; the neuroanatomy of negative symptoms and social function; and the development of novel pharmacological and neuromodulatory approaches for people with treatment-resistant schizophrenia, impaired cognition and social function, and negative symptoms.
Amy Drapalski, Ph.D.
Phone: 410-637-1855
Email: Amy.Drapalski@va.gov
Research Interests: Consumer-oriented tools and strategies to improve quality of care; internalized stigma and its effects; barriers and facilitators of mental illness recovery; development and evaluation of psychosocial interventions for individuals with mental illness and their families; women’s mental health
Richard Goldberg, Ph.D.
Phone: 410-637-1851
E-mail: Richard.Goldberg@va.gov
Research Interests: Serious Mental Illness; Services Research; Medical Co-Morbidity; Quality of Care; Behavioral Health Interventions; Implementation Science; Consumer-led services.
Mary Katherine Howell, Ph.D.
Phone: 443-252-0641
E-mail: Mary.Howell@va.gov
Research Interests: Culturally responsive treatment of stress and trauma for Veterans with serious mental illness (SMI); PTSD and insomnia treatment broadly, and more specifically brief interventions such as Written Exposure Therapy (WET), massed treatment schedules, and providing evidence-based treatments (EBTs) to Veterans with co-occurring SMI; role of vigilant thoughts and behaviors in sleep disturbance; patterns of subjective and physiological distress associated with improvement in exposure-based treatments; linguistic features of trauma narratives; psychological impacts of living or working in threatening environments; culturally responsive assessment and treatment.
Beth Klingaman, Ph.D.
Phone: 410-637-1875
E-mail: Elizabeth.Klingaman@va.gov
Research Interests: Self-efficacy, shared decision making, and behavioral health interventions with individuals with serious mental illness, including women and ethnic minorities; cognitive functioning; neurocognitive effects of health behaviors (e.g., sleep, exercise); impacts of internalized stigma on mental illness recovery; implementation science.
Julie Kreyenbuhl, Pharm.D., Ph.D.
Phone: 410-637-1864
E-mail: Julie.Kreyenbuhl@va.gov, jkreyenb@som.umaryland.edu
Research Interests: Patient-centered approaches to enhance screening for and management of side effects of psychotropic medications; interventions to improve medication adherence among individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), use of innovative technologies to improve functioning and outcomes of individuals with SMI; pharmacoepidemiology of SMI; use of large automated healthcare databases for research.
Alicia Lucksted, Ph.D.
Phone: 443-467-6682
E-mail: Alicia.Lucksted@va.gov
Research Interests: Applied research towards improving mental health services for Veterans and others navigating mental health conditions, Internalized stigma, qualitative and mixed methods in mental health research, psychosocial intervention development, testing, and dissemination.
Haley Miles-McLean, Ph.D.
Phone: 443-610-9194
E-mail: Haley.Miles-Mclean@va.gov
Research Interests: Improving the functioning of midlife and older women Veterans with mental illness; reproductive mental health, with a particular focus on menopause; trauma-informed and gender-responsive interventions; the impact of gender-based discrimination on women’s mental health.
Teodor Postolache, M.D.
Phone: 410-605-7000
E-mail: tpostola@psych.umaryland.edu
Research Interests: Suicide and suicide risk factors; mood disorders; environmental factors (physical, biological, socio-economical) in relationship to brain function and behavior, and physiological mediation of environment-brain-behavior associations (e.g., neuroimmunology, sleep and chronobiology).
Neil Sandson, M.D.
Phone: 410-605-7506
E-mail: Neil.Sandson@va.gov
Research Interests: Drug-Drug Interactions; general psychopharmacology; treatment-resistant mood and psychotic disorders; resident teaching; ethical issues in psychopharmacology.
Letitia Travaglini, Ph.D.
Phone: 410-637-1867
E-Mail: Letitia.Travaglini@va.gov
Research Interests: Co-occurring disorders among individuals with serious mental illness, particularly chronic pain; non-pharmacological pain management strategies for Veterans with co-occurring pain and serious mental illness; the use of brief interventions to enhance treatment motivation and engagement; the impact of stigma on health and well-being.
