Meet our Team
Vijay A. Mittal, Ph.D.
Director
Dr. Mittal is an Assistant professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, and a fellow at the Centre for Neuroscience at CU Boulder. He conducted graduate training at Emory University, and completed a specialized adolescent serious mental illness internship and postdoctoral program at UCLA. Over the past 10 years Dr. Mittal has published over 35 articles working to understand causes behind mental illness among adolescents and young adults, and he specializes in treating youth at high-risk for psychosis. He founded the ADAPT research lab to help these individuals and their families.
http://psych.colorado.edu/~clinical/mittal/index.html
Randal Ross, M.D.
Pediatric Psychiatrist; Diagnostic Consultant
Dr. Ross’ clinical work is primarily completed within the context of his research activities, where he focuses on providing diagnostic consultation on children and young adolescents with possible psychosis. He has served as a Board Examiner on General and Child-and-Adolescent Psychiatry, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and is presently the Director of Medical Student Research at CU Denver. Dr. Ross will be helping the ADAPT team with recruitment and diagnosis.
Derek Dean, B.A.
Clinic Coordinator
Before becoming ADAPT’s clinic coordinator, Derek studied Philosophy and English Literature at the University of Denver and the University of Oxford as well as the basic sciences at Columbia University. He has worked as a volunteer and research assistant on a mental health crisis prevention hotline and as a volunteer in several mental health treatment facilities around Boulder. Currently, his interests include biological, social and psychological markers of risk; emotion; cognitive behavioral and mindfulness based interventions for mental illness; and software applications for psychological stimuli. In his free time, Derek enjoys the outdoors.
Andrea Pelletier, B.S.
Graduate-Student Assessment Specialist
After graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a double major in Psychology and English, Andrea began working as a research assistant at Duke University. While at Duke, Andrea worked with children, adolescents, and their families to investigate post traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and childhood brain development. For the past three years, Andrea has trained at the PRIME (Prevention through Risk Identification, Management, and Education) high-risk clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is currently a graduate student in the Mittal lab at CU Boulder, and is interested in developing early identification and treatment strategies for adolescents and young adults.
Jessica R. Lunsford, M.A.
Graduate-Student Assessment Specialist
After graduating from the University of Virginia in 2006 with a degree in psychology, Jessica spent two years as a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health, investigating the phenomenology and pathophysiology of pediatric bipolar disorder. Since 2008, Jessica has been a graduate student at the University of Colorado, where her research focuses on the role of sleep disturbances in the course and treatment of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents. She completed her master’s degree at CU-Boulder in 2010, and is currently working toward her doctoral degree in clinical psychology.
Chris Case, M.A.
Asessment and Research Specialist
After graduating from Colgate University with a degree in neuroscience, Chris spent two years as a research fellow at the National Institute of Mental Health investigating eye tracking in patients with schizophrenia. After moving to Colorado, he conducted immunohistochemical research at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in a study of Parkinson's disease. Then, a series of events led him to pursue a master's degree in journalism and positions in that field. He recently returned to the field of psychology, and assists with research on mindfulness-based cognitive therapies in depression at the University of Denver. In his spare time, Chris is an elite cyclist, and enjoys the outdoors.
Patricia Zornio, M.S.
Recruitment/Cognitive Function Specialist
Patricia joins the ADAPT clinic having recently attended Northern Michigan University to pursue a Masters in Experimental Psychology. While at NMU, she focused on merging clinical and research interests by specializing in the areas of Clinical Neuropsychology and Behavioral Psychopharmacology, as well as completing a one-year preceptorship in neurosurgery. Having worked in a variety of settings emphasizing higher cognitive functioning (e.g. hospital, clinic, and laboratory), Patricia has worked with populations ranging from adolescent to geriatric. Through her work, she has also gained expertise in IRB practices and human subject protection policies. Professionally, Patricia’s primary interests involve an integrative approach between understanding the neurological underpinnings of cognitive distress in conjunction with larger lifestyle factors in order to better provide preventative care and holistic treatment strategies. In her spare time, Patricia enjoys activities such as rock climbing, gardening, and topics related to sustainability, health and wellness.
Ashley Smith, M.A.
Graduate-Student Assessment Specialist
After graduating from the University of New Mexico with a double major in Psychology and Anthropology, Ashley worked as a research coordinator at the New Mexico Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center for five years, investigating neurocognitive abilities and neural mechanisms of sensory gating in schizophrenia. Since 2009, Ashley has been a graduate student at the University of Colorado, where her research focuses on the etiology of psychiatric disorders, including genetic and environmental risk factors, and neurocognitive abilities associated with psychopathology. She completed her master’s degree at CU-Boulder in 2011 and is currently working toward her doctoral degree in clinical psychology, with a certificate in behavioral genetics.
Research Team
Marie Banich, Ph.D.
Multimodal Imaging Specialist and Developmental Consultant
Marie Banich, Ph.D., is a professor of Psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she also serves as director of the Institute of Cognitive Science, a multi-disciplinary institute dedicated to exploring the science of the mind. She also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado at Denver. Her research specializes in using brain imaging techniques to understand the neural systems that allow us to direct our attention and our actions so that we can prioritize, organize, and target our behavior in a goal-oriented manner, abilities often referred to as executive function. She will help the ADAPT team with interpreting multi-modal data imaging and patterns of adolescent/young adult neural development.
http://psych.colorado.edu/%7Embanich
David Miller, Ph.D.
Imaging Specialist (MRI)
Dr. Miller's research includes neurosurgical and research applications of fMRI, in addition to MTR and perfusion imaging. He is also an Assistant Radiation Safety Officer at the University of Colorado Denver, performs quality assurance for Nuclear Medicine (SPECT and PET), and provides radiological physics instruction to first year residents. Furthermore, Dr. Miller is an established physicist with over ten years research and clinical experience in medical imaging, image processing and analysis, and radiology. He will be involved in studying the structural brain imaging from ADAPT participants.
Michael Caligiuri, Ph.D.
Motor Function Specialist
Dr. Caligiuri attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison where he received a Ph.D. in neuroscience with an emphasis in motor control. Dr. Caligiuri began working with faculty in the Department of Psychiatry in 1987 to test novel instruments for quantifying tardive dyskinesia and drug-induced Parkinsonism. In 2006, he was appointed as Director, Human Research Protection Program at UCSD overseeing five IRBs charged with monitoring the ethical and regulatory conduct of human subjects research at UCSD. Dr Caligiuri’s research focuses on understanding how motor function and impairment can be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of affective and psychotic illnesses. He is working with the ADAPT team to analyze motor development for ADAPT participants.
http://psychiatry.ucsd.edu/faculty/mcaliguiri.html
Mark Brown, Ph.D.
Imaging Specialist (DTI)
Dr. Brown’s work at the Brain Imaging Center has been focused on evaluations of white matter disease such as Multiple Sclerosis and Systemic Lupus Erythmatosis (Lupus), using MR tools such as magnetization transfer ratios (MTR), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), tractography, and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). A multitude of his research involves working with subjects in the earliest stages of MS to try to determine how soon the subtler effects show up, in the hopes that it will provide new clues about the early course of the illness. He will be involved in studying the white matter (connecting tracts) brain imaging data from ADAPT participants.
Undergraduate Staff
Laura Houd
Assessment Team Member
Elise Hague
Assessment Team Member
Clifford Min
Assessment Team Member
Kim Kramer
Assessment Team Member
Justina Wojtach
Assessment Team Member
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