University of Ottawa Collaborators

Anne Vallely, PhD

Dr. Anne Vallely is Associate Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Ottawa. Professor Vallely’s work falls within the broad field of the Anthropology of Religion, with a focus on Jainism. Her research and publications centre devotional practices, death, the spirituality of dying, grief and mourning, asceticism, comparative mysticism, non-ordinary states of consciousness, and entheogenic healing. She is also interested human/non-human boundaries and animal ethics. She is the founder of the Psychedelics & Spirituality Initiative at uOttawa, and co-founder of the Academy of Mindfulness & Contemplative Studies. She is also the author of Guardians of the Transcendent: An Ethnography of a Jain Ascetic Community (2002), co-editor of Animals and the Human Imagination (2012), and co-editor of New Age Judaism (2008).

Allison Jane Ouimet, PhD

Dr. Ouimet is an Associate Professor in the Clinical Psychology Program, and a licensed Clinical Psychologist with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. She joined uOttawa in 2014, after completing her Ph.D in Clinical Psychology at Concordia University, which included a pre-doctoral residency at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton. She is the director of the CADRe Lab, and her research investigates how different types of cognition impact the development, maintenance, and treatment of anxiety disorders. She is particularly interested in integrating fine-grained measurement of cognitive biases with cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) models of anxiety. Dr. Ouimet is currently the Editor-in-Chief for Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, and on the Associate Editorial Board of Behaviour Research and Therapy. She has presented her research at several national and international conferences, and published in a variety of scientific journals.
 

International Collaborators

Rahel Bosson, MD

Dr. Rahel Bosson is a professor at Harvard Massachusetts General Hospital. She worked with Dr. Williams previously at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, where Dr. Williams started a mental health clinic for refugees in the Global Health Center and she was the medical director. They trained and supervised the graduate students to collect clinical interview and questionnaire data from the refugees. She has been collaborating and publishing findings about the mental health of refugees with Dr. Williams since that time. She was the lead author on 4 previous peer-reviewed journal articles from that project with one in progress.

Alan Davis, PhD

Dr. Alan Davis is an assistant professor at Ohio State University and also affiliated with the department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, where has has been active in psychedelic research. Dr. Davis is an expert on substance use disorders and psychedelics for mental health. Many people experiencing racial trauma may use substances to cope with distress. Dr. Davis collaborated with the CMHD to collect data on hallucinogen use and racial trauma in a large international US/Canada sample from every state and province. There is a completed manuscript from the findings was recently published, and several secondary papers are in progress.

Ryan C.T. DeLapp, PhD

Dr. Ryan C.T. DeLapp is a licensed clinical psychologist, formerly at Alvord, Baker, and Associates in Chevy Chase, MD, and an independent contract editor for the American Psychological Association. He has received intensive training in evidenced-based assessments and cognitive-behavioral therapies for mood, anxiety, and behavioral difficulties in children, adolescents, and young adults of varying socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. Such training includes a pre-doctoral internship at Montefiore Medical Center, where he currently works, and postdoctoral training at the Washington Anxiety Center of Capitol Hill. Also, he has a strong interest in and over 30 presentations/publications discussing mental health disparities and culturally-sensitive applications of assessments and treatments for anxiety and mood disorders in child and adult populations. Dr. DeLapp is a former student of Dr. Williams at the University of Louisville and currently collaborates with CMHD faculty and students on ongoing research and writing projects.

Sonya Faber, PhD, MBA

Dr. Faber received her Masters in Neurobiology from Brown University, her PhD in Developmental Genetics from New York University, and an MBA in Pharmaceutical Marketing at CUNY. Since then, she has held positions in academics, non-profits, and biotechnology, working in the German-based cell therapy research institute Fraunhofer, and for companies including, IQVIA, and Sanofi-Aventis. As a part of her work, she has assessed novel ideas and supported scientists in making these commercially viable while contributing to original grants, clinical trials, and research papers and patents. She has neurobiology publications in prominent journals including Development and Mechanisms of Development, co-authored publications in fields ranging from psychology to genetics, and given presentations on topics including race and implicit bias. Currently she is active in neurobiology clinical research, and enjoys writing on topics related to social and biological racism.

Ariana R. Levinson, JD

Professor Levinson is a professor at the Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, at the University of Louisville. Her scholarship and teaching focus on labor and employment law issues and practical legal skills. She was awarded a University Distinguished Teaching Award in Recognition of Exemplary Teaching in 2019. Professor Levinson is a fellow in the Rutgers School of Management & Labor Relations Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership & Profit Sharing, and the Principal Investigator of a Transdisciplinary UofL Research Team focused on cooperative economics. Prior to teaching at Brandeis School of Law, Professor Levinson taught at USC Gould School of Law and at UCLA School of Law. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School, and served as a fellow for the AFL-CIO's Legal Department. During law school, she served as a contributing editor on the Michigan Law Review and was awarded the Robert S. Feldman Labor Law Award for the most outstanding work in that field.

Matthew Skinta, PhD, ABPP

Dr. Matthew Skinta is an Assistant Professor at Roosevelt University in Chicago, and the author of Contextual Behavior Therapy for Sexual and Gender Minority Clients: A Practical Guide to Treatment. He has been collaborating with the CMHD for several years on microaggressions research, examining the experiences of Black students from 3 different universities at predominantly White institutions (PWIs). Based on the data collected and a review of the literature, he and the CMHD have proposed a new taxonomy of racial microaggressions. Dr. Skinta is an expert on LGBTQ issues and gives talks on racial and LGBTQ microaggressions. He is also a peer-certified ACT trainer and a trainer for Functional Analytic Psychotherapy.

Jordan Sloshower, MD

Dr. Jordan Sloshower is a research fellow in Psychiatry at Yale University where he is conducting a clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted ACT therapy for major depressive disorder. Dr. Williams has been actively consulting for that study, and he is collaborating with her for a clinical study of MDMA-assisted therapy for people of color with PTSD in Connecticut where he will be a co-PI on the project. He is also collaborating with CMHD on a manuscript that provides a critical review ethical issues and vulnerable populations in early psychedelic research programs.

Robert Taylor, PhD

Dr. Robert Taylor is an endowed professor at the University of Michigan, School of Social Work. He was part of the National Survey of American Life (NSAL) study, a federally-funded epidemiological interview study implemented by the Program for Research on Black Americans at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. He has collaborated with the CMHD on research about African American and Caribbean immigrant mental health, with 4 published papers and two more in progress.
 

Chad Wetterneck, PhD

Dr. Chad Wetterneck is an Adjunct Professor at Marquette University. He is also a cognitive behavioral specialist and clinical supervisor at Rogers Behavioral Health in Wisconsin, where he directs the PTSD programs. He was formerly on the psychology faculty at the University of Houston – Clear Lake, where he directed an OCD and OC-spectrum disorders specialty center, and was the co-director of research at the Houston OCD Program. Dr. Wetterneck received six years of training at two leading residential/inpatient treatment programs, Rogers Memorial Hospital and The Menninger Clinic. He has authored over 60 scholarly articles, mainly on phenomenology and treatment of OCD and OC-spectrum conditions. He is a professional member of IOCDF, ADAA, ABCT, and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. Currently, he collaborates on CMHD research projects and grant proposals.