As a board-certified psychiatrist, I provide evidence-based psychiatric evaluations, diagnoses, and medication management for a range of psychiatric conditions. My area of specialty for the past 20 years has been perinatal psychiatry - treating women who are considering pregnancy and women who are currently pregnant or within the first year postpartum.

I have always had a particular interest in the ways in which hormones and life transitions affect women’s mental health and in looking at how to best help women during particularly challenging periods of transition physically, hormonally, and psychologically. I graduated from Brown University with a degree in Human Biology, then worked in Public Health at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard School of Public Health for several years looking at the effects of smoking and other health behaviors in pregnancy and postpartum women. I completed a residency in Family Medicine at the University of Washington in 2003 followed by a residency in Psychiatry in 2006. I started working at Swedish Medical Center in 2006 as a consult psychiatrist (seeing a variety of patients admitted for medical and psychiatric concerns and addressing the interplay between a variety of medical conditions, medications, and psychiatric symptoms or illness. I was shocked to find that while 12,000 babies were born at Swedish every year and that while 1 in 5 (or more) women suffer from mood and anxiety disorders in pregnancy and postpartum, there was a paucity of services to address these issues. During my 17-year tenure at Swedish, I founded the Center for Perinatal Bonding and Support and Partial Hospitalization Program for women and their babies, served as Medical Director of Women’s Wellness (and Reproductive Psychiatry) across the system, and built a robust ambulatory perinatal psychiatry service.  

In addition to working with patients, I have spent years teaching residents, fellows (including UW Women's Mental Health Fellows) and ARNPs and have given talks in Seattle and around the country on perinatal mental health, with the goal of increasing screening and access to quality mental health care for pregnant and nursing women.

My various experiences in healthcare have taught me that psychological illnesses are just as critical as physical illnesses and that appreciating the interplay of both is crucial to achieving wellness. My approach to my work is to create a collaborative environment in which to address the many biological, psychological, and environmental factors affecting your wellbeing and to create a comprehensive treatment plan. 

With each patient, I address the trajectory of mental health issues in pregnancy and postpartum, review options for treatment, and discuss the known risks of specific medications or interventions, as well as known risks of untreated mood and anxiety symptoms. Making decisions regarding medications is not easy and I am here to help guide patients in that process while acknowledging their own knowledge, intuition, and values.

I am a strong advocate for patient education about the range of available treatment options. Along with medication management, I integrate brief talk therapy, motivational counseling, and health education into our visits as indicated.

​ I do not specialize in treating addiction or active substance use.

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