Clinical
Current Trainees

Priti Bhardwaj, M.D.
Psychiatry Fellow
I graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine before coming to Chicago for a residency in general psychiatry at Northwestern University, McGaw Medical Center. I developed an interest in child and adolescent psychiatry and came to UIC last year for a specialty fellowship. My interests include anxiety and mood disorders, cognitive behavioral therapy, and pharmacological management. I appreciate the excellent opportunity PSADC affords to enrich my continuing education in these areas.

Sarah Francis, M.A.
Clinical Psychology Intern
I am currently completing my Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. For the past six years, I have worked with children, adolescents, parents, and teachers in schools, university-based clinical settings, and community-based clinics. I have been trained in empirically-supported, manualized, cognitive-behavioral treatments for youth anxiety and depression, as well as in the administration of structured clinical interviews to assess for child internalizing and externalizing disorders. Most recently, I have focused on examining factors underlying the link between parent and child anxiety in the hopes of identifying parental characteristics influencing child treatment outcomes for anxiety disorders. Currently I am doing a clinical research rotation at the PSADC and conducting clinical intakes through the general clinic

Anne Gregory, M.A., M.Ed.
Clinical Psychology Intern
I am completing my Ph.D. in clinical and community psychology at University of California, Berkeley. I have worked with parents and their children for the past ten year in schools, clinics, and residential treatment. Recently, I have focused on the treatment of adolescents from a range of cultural, racial, and ethnic backgrounds. I am particularly interested in the underlying emotional processes linking anxiety, depression, and externalizing behavior during adolescence. Currently, I am a therapist at the PSADC. I work with parents and their child/adolescents who are struggling with various anxiety disorders.
My graduate research has focused on understanding what factors contribute to negative and positive behavior in schools including defiant and disruptive behavior in classrooms as well as engagement and achievement in high school. The goals of my research include strengthening teaching practices and school environments so that children from all backgrounds have access to quality education.

Anna Klyachkina, M.D.
Psychiatry Fellow
I graduated from the Pediatric Medical Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. I completed a fellowship in Children's eye trauma. I worked as a pediatrician and children's eye doctor after that. My clinical interests include anxiety disorders, therapy and medication. I chose this clinic because I thought it would be a really difficult area in which to work and I have always enjoyed challenging cases. Also, I heard from other psychiatry fellows that Dr. Connolly was a very good teacher and it was very important for me to work with someone like her.

Jo Cara Pendergrass, M.A.
Clinical Psychology Intern
I am currently a Clinical Psychology intern at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In addition to seeing clients at the Pediatric Stress and Anxiety Clinic, I also conduct neuropsychological assessments for children and adults through the Department of Psychiatry and provide health psychology consultations throughout UIC hospitals.
My training in graduate school at Finch University of Health Sciences/The Chicago Medical School has included clinical psychology, neuropsychology, and neuroimaging (fMRI) research. My research has complemented my clinical experience by identifying and examining neural circuitry within the brain that is involved in emotion and emotion processing. Through my collaborations with the neuroimaging group at the Medical College of Wisconsin, I am currently completing a series of studies investigating brain structures responsible for the regulation of mood in women, men, and individuals suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I hope to continue to develop my research repertoire to investigate how the development of psychopathology, including neurodevelopmental and affective disorders, alters the functioning of neurobiological mechanisms underlying emotion and cognition.

For more information click on Training Opportunities.