UIC PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH PROJECT

Project Staff

The UIC Perinatal Mental Health Project is staffed by expert UIC faculty and staff clinicians (psychiatrists, an advanced practice nurse, a social worker and public health professionals) led by the Project Director, Laura J. Miller, MD.

Laura Miller, M.D. (Principal Investigator, Project Director): Professor of Psychiatry, UIC. Dr. Miller is the founder and Director of the UIC Women’s Mental Health Program, and the Project Director. She has authored over 60 women’s mental health publications, and edited the book Postpartum Mood Disorders (Miller 1999). She is on the American Psychiatric Association’s Expert Consensus Panel for the treatment of perinatal bipolar disorder and the Surgeon General’s Women’s Mental Health Project. She consults to two National Institutes of Mental Health-funded projects to develop web-based perinatal depression provider training programs. She has designed and implemented award-winning service delivery programs, including the Women’s Inpatient Treatment Service (Miller 1992); Women’s Mental Health Program (Miller 1996); Parenting Assessment Team (Jacobsen et al. 1997); Postpartum Depression Prevention Team, Children’s Advocacy Clinic, and Women’s Consultation Service. She has participated in the Illinois Postpartum Depression Task Force, ACOG’s Providers Partnership Project, the Illinois Department of Public Aid Perinatal Task Force, and ABCD-II.

Bindu Ganga, Psy.D. (Project Manager): Dr. Ganga is the Project Manager for the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Perinatal Mental Health Project. She has over 13 years of clinical experience in various settings. She has held leadership roles in clinical training, was an assistant professor and taught graduate level courses in child/adolescent development and diversity. Her focused interests are in women’s mental health, leadership training and development with ethnic women, and perinatal mood disorders. She has over 6 years of experience working within the perinatal population clinically, programmatically and at a State level. Dr. Ganga holds a Doctorate in Psychology. Her responsibilities include project leadership, budget management, staff supervision, comprehensive report writing, provider trainings, consult line oversight, marketing activities, and liaison between initiatives and their target communities. Outside the University setting, Dr. Ganga sits on the board of an Asian Indian non-profit organization and volunteers her time extensively in the community.

Nafisa Ghadiali, M.D. (Psychiatrist): Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, UIC. Dr. Ghadiali is trained as both an obstetrician/gynecologist and a psychiatrist. She heads the UIC Women’s Inpatient Treatment Service and the Women’s Consult Service, and teaches within the UIC Women’s Mental Health Seminar. She conducts provider training workshops and consultations for the project.

Nelda Scott, M.D. (Psychiatrist): Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, UIC. Dr. Scott has completed a Women’s Mental Health Fellowship and has extensive experience in treating women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. She has conducted depression screenings for the Mental Health Alliance of Illinois, and has helped plan and implement Postpartum Depression Illinois Alliance events. She conducts provider training workshops and consultations for the project. Her area of special interest is mental health in African American women.

Rebecca Christophersen, APN, CNP (Women’s Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner): Rebecca Christophersen is a women’s psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner with the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Women’s Mental Health Program. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing from Loyola University in 1999 and her Master of Science in Nursing in 2006 from Rush University. Rebecca has also received Nursing Honors from Sigma Theta Tau National Nursing Honors Society and is in the process of publishing a selection in a book, with her co-authors, entitled New Research on Postpartum Depression. She has worked as a prenatal staff nurse, and has developed resource and training manuals for nursing staff and trainees. She conducts provider training workshops and consultations for the project. She speaks English and Spanish.

Nikki Lively, LCSW (Perinatal Psychotherapist): Ms. Lively provides individual, couples, and family psychotherapy, and teaches perinatal psychotherapy, within the UIC Women’s Mental Health Program. Ms. Lively has completed a post-graduate fellowship in Adolescent Medicine, and has trained in cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). She helped design and conduct provider training workshops for the project.

Vamsi Vasireddy, MPH (Project Assistant): After practicing as a family medicine physician, Dr. Vasireddy is pursuing a doctorate in public health (planned completion 12/07). He is the Project Assistant, and has also assisted with projects about pregnancy intention in African-American and Latina women, health needs of Muslim women, maternal and infant health outreach, and breast cancer awareness. He has presented at national conferences on addressing barriers to assessing and treating perinatal depression; perinatal genomics; and public health organization conflict management. He received first prize in the doctoral student category for a poster exhibit.