About Us

Alicia is the Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair in Infant Mental Health and Vice Chair for Academic Affairs at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, and Director of the Child Trauma Research Program. She is a clinical consultant with the San Francisco Human Services Agency. She is active in major national organizations involved with mental health in infancy and early childhood. She is past-president of the board of directors of Zero to Three: National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families, and on the Professional Advisory Board of the Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute. She has served on peer review panels of the National Institute of Mental Health, is on the Board of Trustees of the Irving Harris Foundation, and consults with the Miriam and Peter Haas Foundation on early childhood education for Palestinian-Israeli children.

Born and raised in Paraguay, she received her BA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. This background informs her work on behalf of children and families from diverse ethnic and cultural origins, with primary emphasis on the experiences of Latinos in the United States.

Dr. Lieberman is currently the director of the Early Trauma Treatment Network (ETTN), a collaborative of four university sites that include the UCSF/SFGH Child Trauma Research Program, Boston Medical Center, Louisiana State University Medical Center, and Tulane University. ETTN is funded by the federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, a 40-site national initiative that has the mission of increasing the access and quality of services for children exposed to trauma in the United States. Her major interests include infant mental health, disorders of attachment, early trauma treatment outcome research, and mental health service disparities for underserved and minority children and families. Her current research involves treatment outcome evaluation of the efficacy of child-parent psychotherapy with trauma-exposed children aged birth to six and with pregnant women involved in domestic violence. As a trilingual, tricultural Jewish Latina, she has a special interest in cultural issues involving child development, child rearing, and child mental health. She lectures extensively on these topics nationally and internationally.

Ann has spent nearly two decades translating and disseminating trauma research into real-world care for young children and families. She started with the Child Trauma Research Program as a pre-doctoral intern in 2008 when she first trained in Child-Parent Psychotherapy. As the current Director of the Child Trauma Research Program, she sets the strategic vision across research, training, and dissemination for Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) and CPP-informed services.

Along the way, Ann has held a faculty position at the University of Denver and leadership roles in community mental health. She has published widely on early childhood trauma and attachment and has led several federally-funded projects. She holds a Ph.D. in Child Clinical Psychology from the University of Denver and is a licensed clinical psychologist in California.

Vilma is the Associate Director of the the Child Trauma Research Program and an Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Francisco. Since 2009, she has been providing Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) services, training, clinical supervision, consultation and coordinating community-based mental health outreach services and evaluation. She is a national trainer in CPP and has co-authored articles and chapters on CPP theory and application.

Dr. Reyes developed a CPP-based group intervention, Building Bridges, which has been applied and researched in several community settings including 7 family shelters across 3 counties in the Bay Area, CA. This intervention was adapted to the displaced community in Bogota, Colombia and the Afro-Colombian community in Tumaco, Colombia. This adaptation, Semillas de Apego, is being researched in two randomized controlled studies with a sample size of over 1,200 families. Dr. Reyes has presented this research at national and international conferences, including the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

In addition to her Doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology, Dr. Reyes has also earned a Master of Arts in Education and has experience offering consultation, supervision and training in trauma informed systems in school-based settings. Dr. Reyes is an immigrant from Peru and is devoted to increasing access to trauma informed services for Latinx immigrant families. She has done several lectures in national conferences on the intersection of immigration and trauma; with a focus on asylum seekers and refugees exposed to armed conflict, systemic oppression and racism.

Brooke (she/her/hers) joined our team as Dissemination Coordinator in 2019 after relocating to the Bay area with her family. For most of the past decade, Brooke served as clinical coordinator for a Boston area program that provided therapeutic services to children exposed to violence and their families.  She brings working knowledge of dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices, having completed several learning collaboratives in her career, including two in Child Parent Psychotherapy.  Brooke is also a nationally registered Dance/Movement Therapist. In her spare time she can be found hiking and relaxing at the beach with her husband and two young children.

Shondra began her training in Child-Parent Psychotherapy at the Child Trauma Research Program as a pre-doctoral intern in 2012. After completing her doctoral degree, she went on to spearhead the CPP Agency Mentorship Program (CAMP) at Instituto Familiar de la Raza in San Francisco. She later joined the Early Childhood Services team of The Jewish Board in New York city. She served as the Director of the Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation program and the Harlem Child Development Center’s early childhood outpatient clinic. While at The Jewish Board, she continued her apprenticeship as a CPP Agency Trainer and supported the agency’s CAMP application process. During that time, she also initiated an innovative trauma focused parent peer program for parents with child welfare involvement in collaboration with the Field Guide to Barefoot Psychology in an effort to combat mental health stigma and increase access to services in communities overly impacted by trauma. Shondra has worked in community-based health care settings for over 25 years. As a bilingual clinician, she has worked extensively with Spanish speaking children and families. She weaves together her training as a psychologist with specialized training in integrative somatic approaches to trauma therapy, meditation and yoga. She supports children, families and staff to envision, embody and invite wholeness, connection and vitality back into their lives. Shondra is pleased to rejoining the CPP mothership. She looks forward to supporting partner agencies in the CAMP application and implementation process. In her spare time, she can be found, watching the clouds float by, trying her hand at a new DIY project or creating sound meditations for friends and family. She lives by the motto: “Will travel for delicious food!”

Adriana has been a CPP trainer and consultant for the Child Trauma Research Program since 2020. She was trained in New Mexico in 2013 and for the following years, she provided CPP supervision and consultation to clinicians and supervisors across New Mexico.

Ben (he/him/his) joined the CPP Team as a Dissemination Analyst in 2021. He previously worked as a senior analyst researching wildlife conservation and human security in Washington, DC, and has volunteered as an EMT in Massachusetts and Maryland. He brings interdisciplinary experience in database curation, qualitative and quantitative analysis, and international training. Outside of work, Ben enjoys swimming, reading fiction, and studying language.

Chandra trained in Child-Parent Psychotherapy at the Child Trauma Research Program as an intern and postdoctoral fellow from 1998-2000. She spent a year as adjunct faculty for the CAARE Center at UC Davis. She rejoined CTRP in 2001 as the Associate Director of Research and helped lead the team’s partnership with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. She served as Director of CPP Dissemination and Implementation and Co-Associate Director of CTRP.

Markita is Director of Behavioral Health for EMBRACE: Perinatal Integrated Care in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. Her work sits at the intersection of clinical care, community practice, and systems transformation, with a central focus on perinatal mental health, infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH), and reproductive justice. At UCSF, Markita leads the development and implementation of a culturally responsive, interdisciplinary model of care designed to address persistent inequities in maternal health outcomes. EMBRACE integrates behavioral health into prenatal and postpartum care, centers relational practice, and strengthens connections between hospital and community-based systems. She also serves as a national Trainer in Child-Parent Psychotherapy with the Child Trauma Research Program, where she has been on staff since 2010.

A Brown University graduate (Human Biology) and California State University, East Bay alumna (MSW, Children, Youth, and Families), Markita brings more than fifteen years of clinical and systems leadership to her work. She holds advisory roles with ZERO TO THREE’s IECMH Clinical Workforce Diversity Collective and the Irving Harris Foundation Professional Development Network’s Reproductive Health Justice Committee, and has contributed to publications in the Infant Mental Health Journal, Maternal and Child Health Journal, and the ZERO TO THREE Journal.

Her honors include the 2020 ZERO TO THREE Emerging Leadership Award, the 2015 UCSF Chancellor Award for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership, and recognition as a UCSF Dean’s Diversity Leader. Markita’s work is anchored in the conviction that meaningful change requires alignment across clinical practice, community wisdom, and institutional systems—and that families deserve to be supported with dignity, relational care, and the conditions necessary to thrive.

She is the 2020 recipient of the Zero To Three Emerging Leader Award, served as a Dean Diversity Leader (2016-2018) for the UCSF School of Medicine’s Differences Matter Initiative, and the 2015 UCSF Chancellor Award for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership.

Melissa completed her pre-doctoral internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the Child Trauma Research Program before starting as an Assistant Professional Researcher in 2023. In this role, Melissa combines her clinical knowledge, research acumen, and web development experience to develop and manage databases, assist in advanced user experience needs, and provide methodological and research support. She is looking forward to further developing CTRP’s research efforts to better understand the nuances of CPP both at the “Mothership” and in the broader community. In her free time, Melissa is usually training with her dogs, cooking (and eating) good food, and playing video games.

Mitchell Kazeminejad joined our team in November 2024, focusing on finance, compliance, and award management. Outside of work, he enjoys cycling around the Bay Area and swimming.