Soudabeh Givrad, MD is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Division of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Child Development at Stanford University, and an attending psychiatrist at Stanford Children’s Health/Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.  

Dr. Givrad is a nationally recognized leader in perinatal and infant mental health. She developed and directed the first fellowship in perinatal-infant psychiatry in the United States, training the next generation of specialists to work at the intersection of reproductive, perinatal, and early relational mental health. Her clinical and academic work focuses on perinatal and infant psychiatry integration, early dyadic care, and creating a continuity of care for families, bridging psychiatry, obstetrics, pediatrics, and developmental science. 

She is on the board of directors of the National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry and authored a key chapter on infant mental health integration in clinical systems of care. Dr. Givrad previously served as director of the Maternal-Infant Psychiatry Program at Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where she expanded services for pregnant and postpartum individuals and their infants.

Dr. Givrad completed her psychiatry residency at Yale School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. She is board certified in General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. She completed her internship at Michigan State University and earned her medical degree from Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

Amalia Londoño Tobón, MD is a bicultural, bilingual (Spanish–English, Colombian-American) psychiatrist and researcher specializing in perinatal, infant–early childhood, family, and cultural dimensions of mental health. She is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University and MedStar Health, where she leads research to integrate perinatal and infant mental health into obstetric and pediatric systems of care. Within the MedStar Georgetown Mother-Baby Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP), she advances dyadic and family-centered approaches and collaborates with clinical teams to strengthen early identification and coordinated support for families.

Dr. Londoño is recognized nationally and internationally for her work on perinatal–infant mental health integration. She holds leadership positions across multiple professional organizations: founding member of La Red Latinoamericana de Salud Mental Perinatal, board-elected member of the Marcé of North America (MONA), incoming co-chair of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Infant and Preschool Committee and the Hispanic/Latinx Caucus, and co-chair of the DC Perinatal Quality Collaborative’s implementation of the AIM Perinatal Mental Health bundle. She has served on the American Psychiatric Association’s Perinatal Mental Health Taskforce and co-leads LaSaludMental.org, a platform offering culturally and linguistically curated mental health resources. She is also an active volunteer with Postpartum Support International.

Dr. Londoño earned her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Johns Hopkins University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She completed her residency and fellowship in psychiatry and child psychiatry at Yale University, a fellowship in perinatal mental health at Brown University, and a research fellowship at the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities.

Misty C. Richards, MD, MS, is an Associate Clinical Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, with a joint appointment in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. She is a nationally recognized educator and clinician, known for her leadership in perinatal and infant mental health integration across disciplines.

Dr. Richards serves as the Program Director for the UCLA Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship and is highly involved in medical student education as the Co-Chair of the UCLA DGSOM Medical Education Committee.Clinically, Dr. Richards serves as the Director of Infant Mental Health of the UCLA Maternal Mental Health Intensive Outpatient Program and is also the Co-Founder and Medical Director of Perinatal Psychiatry for the Maternal Outpatient Mental health Services (MOMS) Clinic. The MOMS Clinic is a pioneering program in UCLA’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology that brings psychiatric care into perinatal and reproductive health settings, supporting women and families through every stage of the perinatal journey.

Her interest in perinatal mental health began as an undergraduate at UCLA, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychobiology while researching the impact of anxiety and depression in pregnancy. She went on to complete a four-year research fellowship at the NIH and National Science Foundation, studying the neurobiology of mood disorders. She later obtained an MS in Neuroscience and an MD from Albany Medical College, and was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to study stigma associated with mental illness in Japan.

Dr. Richards completed her General Psychiatry Residency and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at the UCLA Semel Institute, where she has since developed her clinical and academic focus on the intersection of perinatal psychiatry, infant mental health, and family systems. In addition to her domestic work, she has contributed to global mental health through initiatives such as co-founding a medical clinic in Ddegeya Village, Uganda, fostering sustainable partnerships with U.S. institutions. Dr. Richards is committed to advancing equitable, developmentally informed, and family-centered models of care that support the mental health of both parents and infants, right from the beginning.

Lee Savio Beers, MD, FAAP is the Chief Medical Officer of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the professional organization representing 67,000 pediatricians whose mission is to attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults. She was the 2021 President of the American Academy of Pediatrics and

received the 2019 Public Policy and Advocacy Award from the Academic Pediatric Association. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Zero to Three, and the Pediatric Academic Societies, and is a member of the Advocacy-Policy Committee of the American Pediatric Society.

She earned her Medical Degree from Emory University School of Medicine and completed a pediatric residency at the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth VA. Prior to joining the American Academy of Pediatrics, she was a Professor of Pediatrics and the A. James & Alice B. Clark Distinguished Professor of Early Childhood Intervention and Advocacy at Children’s National in Washington DC, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the National Naval Medical Center in

Bethesda, MD and a general pediatrician at the Naval Hospital in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba . She splits time between Washington DC and New York City with her husband Nathaniel, and two children.

Sheehan Fisher, PhD is an Associate Professor and perinatal clinical psychologist at Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine and the Associate Dean for Academic Environment and Success at The Graduate School. His research career focuses on the effects of perinatal and subsequent parental mental health on infant/child health outcomes, with a specialization in the field of non-birthing parent mental health.  His aim is to reconceptualize parental mental health research to integrally involve both birthing and non-birthing parents to differentiate parents’ impact on child medical and mental health.  Dr. Fisher’s research dovetails with his perinatal clinical practice, including being the clinical director of the Fathers’ Mental Health Specialty Clinic.  He has been a leader nationally and internationally advocating for more inclusion of racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, linguistic, and religious minorities in perinatal research and clinical practice to address domestic and global health disparities. In addition to research and clinical practice, Dr. Fisher focuses on public policy, advocacy, and media to support perinatal families and ensure programs address variations of family dynamics. Ultimately, Dr. Fisher’s goal is to optimize the health and effectiveness of the parental team to positively influence the child health trajectory and help the family thrive.  

Dr. Walter S. Gilliam began serving as the executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute in 2023, succeeding Founding Executive Director Samuel J. Meisels. Gilliam, who holds the Richard D. Holland Presidential Chair in Early Childhood Development, also holds a primary academic appointment at the Munroe-Meyer Institute at the University of Nebraska Medical Center at a rank of tenured professor. Gilliam came to the Institute from Yale University, where he was Elizabeth Mears & House Jameson Professor of Child Psychiatry and Psychology at the Yale Child Study Center and director of Yale’s Edward Zigler Center in Child Development and Social Policy. 

He is board president of ZERO TO THREE, a past president of Child Care Aware of America, board treasurer for the Irving Harris Foundation, and a director for First Children’s Finance, All Our Kin, and the National Workforce Registry Alliance, and a former senior advisor to the National Association for the Education of Young Children. In 2023, he was named a senior fellow working with the Bipartisan Policy Center's Early Childhood Initiative. Gilliam is co-recipient of the prestigious 2008 Grawemeyer Award in Education for the coauthored book, A Vision for Universal Preschool Education. His research involves early childhood education and intervention policy analysis (specifically how policies translate into effective services), ways to improve the quality of PreKindergarten and child care services, the impact of early childhood education programs on children’s school readiness, and effective methods for reducing classroom behavior problems and preschool expulsion, as well as issues of COVID-19 transmission, vaccination, and health and safety promotion in early childhood settings. His scholarly writing addresses early childhood care and education programs, school readiness, and developmental assessment of young children. 

Gilliam has led national analyses of state-funded PreKindergarten policies and mandates, how PreKindergarten programs are being implemented across the range of policy contexts, and the effectiveness of these programs at improving school readiness and educational achievement, as well as experimental and quasi-experimental studies on methods to improve early education quality. His work frequently has been covered in major national and international news outlets for print (e.g., New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, LA Times), radio (e.g., NPR), and television (e.g., CNN Headline News, NBC TODAY Show, CBS Early Show, ABC Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, FOX News). Gilliam has actively provided consultation to state and federal decision-makers in the United States and other countries (such as the People’s Republic of China and the United Arab Emirates) and frequently provides testimony and briefings before Congress on issues related to early care and education. 

Gilliam is a graduate of the University of Kentucky, where he earned a master’s degree in educational psychology and a Ph.D. in school psychology. He grew up in Pikeville, Kentucky. 

Alicia F. Lieberman, Ph.D. is Irving B. Harris Endowed Chair in Infant Mental Health, Professor Emerita in the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and director of the UCSF Child Trauma Research Program. She directs the Early Trauma Treatment Network, a center of SAMHSA National Child Traumatic Stress Network funded since 2001 with the mission to increase access and raise the standard of care for trauma-exposed young children and their families across the United States. She is the senior developer of Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP), an evidence-based treatment for traumatized children aged birth-five with an international reach in Australia, Hong Kong,

Israel and Europe and nationally disseminated in 40+ states through 2500+ rostered clinicians and 80+ CPP trainers. CPP has been successfully extended to the perinatal period as Perinatal Child-Parent Psychotherapy (P-CPP). Her research involves treatment outcome studies in pregnancy and with traumatized young children from low-income and under-represented minority groups. She is the author of The Emotional Life of the Toddler, described as “groundbreaking” and now in its second edition to mark its 25 th year in continuous print. She is also the author of numerous professional books and

articles on pregnancy and early childhood mental health. Born in Paraguay, she received her professional training in Israel and the United States. Her cross-cultural experience as a Jewish Latina informs her commitment to increasing access and raising the standard of care for marginalized children and families.  Her books have been translated to several languages, including joint editions in Arabic and Hebrew to promote cross-cultural dialogue. She is Board Member Emerita of the Zero to Three Board of Directors and a board member and past board chair of the Irving Harris Foundation. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2024 Honorary Doctorate from the Hebrew University

of Jerusalem, 2023 Holly Smith Award UCSF Award for Exceptional University Service, 2020 Zero to Three Lifetime Achievement Award and 2016 Rene Spitz Award for Lifetime Achievement from the World Association of Infant Mental Health (WAIMH), and 2016 Hero Award from the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Mariel Mendez, MPH  (she/her/ella) believes that the earliest moments of life shape much of what comes after. The perinatal period is not only a beginning for a baby. It is a profound transition for the person giving birth, their partner, and their entire family. It is a time when connection, safety, and support can become the foundation for lifelong wellbeing, and when harm does occur, repairing relationships can be essential to healing.

The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Mariel learned early that family is held together through care: in who shows up, who stays close, and who helps carry what one person cannot carry alone. She came to understand the meaning of that care in a deeply personal way after the birth of her first child, when she experienced postpartum depression and anxiety. Becoming a mother changed how she understood mental health and made deeply personal what she had long been interested in professionally: how our earliest relationships and environments shape who we become, and what families need to thrive.

Mariel earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Gonzaga University and a master’s degree in Global Public Health from Columbia University. Through her studies and work in more than 10 countries, including Brazil and the Dominican Republic, she deepened her understanding of how environment, community, and social conditions shape child mental health. She later worked at Harvard Medical School’s The Family Van, where she delivered care to families where they were and helped develop a model for bringing mental health support into communities through community health workers.

She spent the last seven years at Perigee Fund, supporting a national portfolio at the intersection of maternal and infant mental health, including policy, healthcare integration, workforce development, and community rooted models of healing. Across this work, Mariel became increasingly convinced that supporting a baby means supporting the people and relationships around that baby. The mental health of a birthing person, the wellbeing of a partner or father, the health of a family, and the development of a child are deeply connected. When those relationships are strained or disrupted, supporting repair and reconnection can be just as important as preventing harm in the first place.

Today, Mariel is a first year medical student at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She brings to medicine a commitment to seeing patients within the context of their families, communities, and lived experiences. She is especially interested in the perinatal period as a powerful opportunity to support connection, strengthen families, and change the trajectory of health across generations.

For Mariel, this work is both professional and deeply personal. She is “mami” first, medical student second, and her own children have taught her that some of the most important work in medicine happens in the moments that can seem smallest: being present, creating safety, repairing when things go wrong, and helping a family feel that they are not alone.

Katrina Moline is the Executive Director of Hand to Hold, a national

nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the emotional and mental

health of NICU and bereaved families through peer support, counseling,

education, and hospital-based family support.

Katrina brings both organizational leadership and lived experience to

her work. Her oldest son, Bryce, was born at 24 weeks following a

traumatic birth and spent five months in the NICU, an experience that

shaped her understanding of birth trauma, the lasting emotional impact

of a NICU stay, and the critical importance of family-centered,

trauma-informed support.

Since joining Hand to Hold in 2018, Katrina has helped expand the

organization’s reach and strengthen partnerships among families,

hospitals, clinicians, researchers, community organizations, and

industry. Her work focuses on integrating lived experience into

systems of care, increasing access to early intervention mental health

support, and ensuring that parents and caregivers have a meaningful

role in shaping the programs, research, policies, and practices

intended to serve them.

Katrina regularly contributes the family and community perspective to

national collaborations advancing neonatal and perinatal care. She

serves on the Executive Council of the Family-Centered Care Taskforce,

the Steering Committee of the National Coalition for Infant Health,

and the Keenova Advocacy Advisory Council. She also collaborates with

researchers and clinical investigators on patient- and family-centered

research initiatives, including NICU-focused PCORI proposals and

multi-institutional projects seeking to better understand and improve

the experiences and outcomes of NICU families.

After participating in the PIM Network’s Community Engagement & Lived

Experience panel, Katrina joined the PIM Network Advisory Group, where

she brings a perspective grounded in lived experience, community

engagement, nonprofit leadership, and the belief that families should

be partners in designing the systems that care for them. 

Dr. Tiffany A. Moore Simas is Chair and Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry, and Population & Quantitative Health Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School/UMass Memorial Health. A nationally recognized physician-scientist and leader in perinatal mental health, she founded the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program (MCPAP) for Moms—the first statewide program helping obstetric clinicians address perinatal mental health and substance use disorders—which has become the model for 31 programs nationwide. She also directs Lifeline for Moms, advancing the integration of obstetric and mental health care and promoting perinatal mental health equity through research, technical assistance, and national collaboration. With a robust federally funded research portfolio and over 150 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Moore Simas serves in national leadership roles with SASGOG, ACOG, ABOG, and AIM, and is committed to developing women leaders in academic medicine through her EMPOWER program at UMass.

Arietta Slade, Ph.D. is Professor Adjunct of Psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center, and Professor Emerita in the doctoral program in Clinical Psychology at the City University of New York. An internationally recognized theoretician, clinician, researcher, and teacher, she has published widely on reflective parenting, the clinical implications of attachment theory, the development of parental mentalization, and the relational contexts of early symbolization, and regularly presents her work to national and international audiences. For the past 20 years she has been co-directing Minding the Baby, an interdisciplinary reflective parenting home visiting program for high-risk mothers, infants, and their families, at the Yale Child Study Center and School of Nursing. This program is one of only 18 certified “evidence-based” home visiting programs in the United States. Dr. Slade is author, with Lois S. Sadler, Tanika Eaves, and Denise L. Webb of Enhancing Attachment and Reflective Parenting in Clinical Practice: A Minding the Baby Approach (Guilford Press, 2023), with Jeremy Holmes of Attachment in Therapeutic Practice (SAGE Publications, 2018), and editor, with Jeremy Holmes of the six volume set, Major Work on Attachment (SAGE Publications, 2013), with Elliot Jurist and Sharone Bergner, of Mind to Mind: Infant Research, Neuroscience, and Psychoanalysis (Other Press, 2008), and with Dennie Wolf, of Children at Play (Oxford University Press, 1994). 

Monica Ruiz serves as Program Coordinator for the PIM Network and Georgetown University Thrive Center for Children, Families, and Communities, where she coordinates initiatives designed to strengthen systems of care for infants, children, and families. Monica supports private and federally funded programs, facilitates community partnerships, and manages program coordination activities, including multi-state peer connections and stakeholder engagement.

Monica holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership and Management from Pacific Oaks College and a Bachelor of Arts in Physical Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has completed additional certifications in Project Management and AI for Team Productivity through Georgetown University. Guided by her commitment to caring service and continuous growth, Monica leverages her nonprofit experience and advanced training to provide empathetic, tailored support in mission-driven environments.

Dr. Laura Handal-Abularach  is a second-year Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellow at LSU Health Shreveport. Originally from Bolivia, she completed her medical degree with distinction in Argentina, followed by a pediatrics residency at Garrahan Pediatrics Hospital in Buenos Aires. She also completed clinical research training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

She has presented award-winning research at national and international conferences, is the 2026 Nyapati Rao and Francis Lu IMG Fellowship Award winner, and has contributed to several peer-reviewed publications, serving as Associate Editor for the American Journal of Psychiatry Residents’ Journal (2024–2025). 

Dr. Handal’s academic interests include early child development, medical education, and the mental health of infants and very young children. Her work aims to integrate pediatric expertise, research methodology, and psychiatric training to advance developmental, preventive, and culturally informed approaches in child and adolescent psychiatry. 

Anton D. Livshin, DO is a psychiatry resident at Stony Brook University Hospital, currently applying to child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship, whose interests center on infant and early childhood mental health, the perinatal period, and the intergenerational transmission of trauma. He is drawn to the problem of translating relational and psychodynamic constructs into measurable form, so that risk in the parent-child relationship can be recognized early enough to act on.