Margarita Alegria, PhD

Professor, Harvard Medical School
Director, Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research

Dr. Alegria and her staff at the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research conduct mental health services research that aims to help shape policy, practice and service delivery to reduce disparities and improve the well-being of multicultural populations. Dr. Alegría is currently the Principal Investigator of the Advanced Center for Latino and Mental Health Systems Research, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which focuses on understanding the factors affecting mental health service disparities for multicultural populations and generating the research and knowledge to eliminate them.  Dr. Alegria is also Principal Investigator of a NCMHD-funded Challenge Grant titled “Reducing Ethnic and Racial Bias in Screening for Psychiatric Disorders in Adolescents.” She serves as co-Principal Investigator of the NCMHD-funded UPR-CHA Research Center of Excellence, a disparities center grant with the goal of generating and testing interventions that can remedy service disparities.

Nicholas Carson, MD, FRCPC

Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Research Associate, Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research

Dr. Carson is a graduate of the child psychiatry fellowship at Cambridge Health Alliance and completed residency training in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. His research in mental health services for multicultural communities has explored the quality and social determinants of mental health treatment among Haitian, African American, and white youth. He is currently an investigator on the Right Question Project-Mental Health study, a multi-site randomized controlled trial of a bilingual patient activation intervention for adults in mental health treatment. Dr. Carson also studies and has presented on the effects of mass media on the mental health of youth and families. Dr. Carson is a teacher of the summer Scholarly Activities course for first-year fellows, and he co-leads the Clinical Scholarship course for first and second-year fellows.

Joel Goldstein, MD

Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; Associate
Chief for Clinical Services, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry;
Acting Chief for Clinical Services, Division of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry

Joel Goldstein, MD, completed his training in General Psychiatry at The Massachusetts Mental Health Center in 1990 and his training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The Cambridge Hospital in 1992. He has pursued his interest in community psychiatry and systems of care during the course of his career.  Dr. Goldstein served as Medical Director of the Child Assessment Unit at the Cambridge Hospital and later became the Director of Intensive Services in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance. He served as the Medical Director at The Home for Little Wanderers from 2001 to 2005. Dr. Goldstein returned to Cambridge Health Alliance in November 2005 to assume his current role.  Dr. Goldstein has also maintained a strong interest in psychotherapy and outpatient practice. He has worked in private practice since 1992.

Judith Howe, LICSW

Teaching Associate, Harvard Medical School
Chief, Psychiatry Social Work
Director, Child and Adolescent Outpatient Psychiatry;
Chief, Psychiatry Social Work; Acting Director, Child Psychiatry
Outpatient Services

Judith Howe completed her child/adult social work training at The Children's Hospital and The Cambridge Health Alliance, and has additional training in clinical art therapy with children and families. She is an Advanced Candidate at the Advanced Training Program at the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute. Her administrative responsibilities include oversight of the Social Work Service and running the Child/Adolescent Psychiatric Outpatient Service. She has a clinical interest in adoption-related issues, as well as art as assessment and therapy, and family-based therapy.

Xenia Johnson Bembe, MD

Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director of Community Minority Affairs

Xenia Johnson, MD, completed a General Psychiatry residency at the Medical University of South Carolina and her child training at The Cambridge Hospital. Upon completing her training in Child Psychiatry in 2000, she worked as a staff psychiatrist on the Child Assessment Unit. Previously, Dr. Johnson was the Associate Director of Training for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program, and she currently works as a consultant to the Cambridge and Malden Public School systems. In addition, she has worked as a community child psychiatrist for underserved populations in Massachusetts. Dr. Johnson's interests led her to create a biracial girls group focusing on the challenges facing teenaged girls around identity formation.

Nancy Rappaport, MD

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director of School Programs

Nancy Rappaport, MD, completed her General Psychiatry Training at the Massachusetts General Hospital and her Child & Adolescent training at The Cambridge Hospital. Her particular passion is training child psychiatrists to provide support to students and teachers. Particular research interests are in community based participatory research (with schools), understanding and providing safety assessments of aggressive students, refining CBT for traumatized adolescents, and writing for publication. She published a memoir, In Her Wake: A Child Psychiatrist Explores the Mystery of Her Mother's Suicide,  in September 2009, and in 2012 with Jessica Minahan The Behavior Code: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Teaching the Most Challenging Students.

Debra S. Rosenblum, MD

Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Acting Medical Director, Child Outpatient

Debra S. Rosenblum, MD completed her General Psychiatry training and her Child and Adolescent Fellowship at the Cambridge Health Alliance. Currently she serves as the Acting Medical Director of the Outpatient Department in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and as a Preceptor for the Second Year Child Fellow Psychopharmacology Clinic. She has a particular interest in children's' relationship to popular culture and has published on this topic. She has also served on the Television and Media Committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Jacob Venter, MD

Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Inpatient Services

Dr. Venter completed medical school in South Africa. He completed his Psychiatry Training at the Maricopa Integrated Health System in Phoenix, AZ and his Child and Adolescent Psychiatry training at Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance. He spent a year at McLean Hospital, completing a child and adolescent neuropsychiatry fellowship with Dr. Jean Frazier, worked at MGH and became the Medical Director for the Adolescent Assessment Unit at CHA. He returned to Arizona to become the Associate Program Director in the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Training Program prior to rejoining CHA in his current role.