Program Leadership & Faculty

Dr. Alpert’s clinical focus centers on the evaluation and treatment of complex mood and anxiety disorders. He has received numerous recognitions for teaching, mentorship and service from Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Partners HealthCare, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA).

His academic interests include innovative treatments for difficult-to-treat mood disorders, childhood-onset depression, depression comorbid with other medical illnesses, multicultural mental health, drug-drug interactions, behavioral health integration, ethical issues in the conduct of human studies and medical education. He is the author of over 200 publications. Dr. Alpert joined Montefiore Einstein in April 2017, after 24 years at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he served as Director of the Depression Clinical and Research Program and Associate Chief of Psychiatry, responsible for outpatient, inpatient and emergency services.

Dr. Schwartz’s responsibilities include overseeing activities in the Department at the Weiler, Moses Wakefield and Behavioral Health Clinics at Westchester Square, as well as the Division of Substance Abuse and Substance Abuse Treatment Program. Dr. Schwartz serves as Medical Director and was a founding member of University Behavioral Associates, a not-for-profit behavioral health management services organization.

Dr. Schwartz is an expert in the treatment of affective disorders and psychopharmacology. He completed a distinguished year as President of the American Psychiatric Association (2019-2020) and served as Immediate Past President (2020-2023), where he advanced national advocacy for issues relevant to the patients and communities we serve.

Dr. Kennedy’s research has focused on cardiac arrhythmias, the epidemiology of depression and dementia, mental healthcare in nursing homes, primary care sites and in the community, and novel communications approaches between healthcare providers. He has authored numerous publications on late-life mental health and has given numerous invited presentations to educational, scientific and public policy organizations in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Bernstein is a Consultant and Senior Scholar for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), a Past President of the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and served the association as Vice President, Treasurer and Trustee-at-Large and as the chair of multiple committees. She has served as a spokesperson for the APA on many occasions and received the 1997 Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). She is the recipient of the APA/National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Vestermark Award in Psychiatric Education and the APA Alexandra Symonds Award for contributions to the advancement of women in leadership and women’s health.

Dr. Ozdoba completed her Psychiatry Residency Training and Fellowship in Administrative Psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. She graduated from Temple University School of Medicine and the University of Michigan with a B.A. in psychology.

In her career at Montefiore Einstein, Dr. Ozdoba was the Medical Director of the Adult Outpatient Psychiatry Department (AOPD), the outpatient clinic for all psychiatry residents in their third and fourth years of training. She continues to be involved in teaching and supervising residents in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. While in the AOPD, she was Program Director and Founder of the OnTrackNY Program, specializing in first-episode psychosis (FEP). She was the Director of Quality Improvement (QI) for the Department of Psychiatry and continues her involvement as a QI research mentor for trainees.

Dr. Ozdoba received the Montefiore Staff and Alumni Outstanding House Officer Award in 2008 and the Excellence in Teaching Award from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in 2017 and 2020.

Dr. Kim’s passion for serving patients led him to train at the intersection of mind and body. His clinical and healthcare research interests include comorbid medical and psychiatric illnesses, severe mental illness and social determinants of health (SDOH) and mental health.

During her fellowship in psychosomatic medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Gómez was awarded the American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Fellowship and the Linda Pollin Foundation Fellowship in Medical Crisis Counseling. She also received the American Psychiatric Association Nancy C.A. Roske, MD, Certificate of Excellence in Medical Student Education. Dr. Gómez has completed multiple subspecialty board certifications, including psychosomatic medicine, geriatric psychiatry, addiction psychiatry and forensic psychiatry and is one of the very few psychiatrists to be certified in pain medicine.

Dr. Battaglia received his medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and has practiced medicine for over 20 years. He has expertise in treating anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder and depression, among other mental health conditions.

Dr. Hollander previously served as the Esther and Joseph Klingenstein Professor and Chair of Psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and was Director of the Seaver and NY Autism Center of Excellence in New York City. Previously, he served as Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York.

Dr. Hollander has served as the Principal Investigator for several federal grants, including the NIH Greater New York Autism Center of Excellence; the NIMH Research Training Grant in Psychopharmacology and Outcomes Research, the DOD CBDV in ASD treatment study and multicenter treatment trials of pediatric body dysmorphic disorder, autism and Prader Willi syndrome (PWS), funded by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Dr. Gabbay is one of the nation’s leading experts on pediatric mood disorders and is a renowned researcher with a focus on the neurological and immunological mechanisms that contribute to the development and maintenance of mood disorders in youth. Her primary areas of research include multimodal studies of adolescent depression and reward deficits, the comorbidity of depression and substance use in people living with human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) and neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID-19.

Dr. Milrod is a trained psychoanalyst and researcher studying psychodynamic psychotherapy for the treatment of PTSD. She is an expert in the psychotherapeutic treatment of patients with anxiety disorders, particularly in the areas of panic disorder and conversion disorder, both in adults and children. She is a faculty member of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute and the Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. She has published numerous articles and books and has received many awards for her contributions in the area of psychoanalytic psychotherapy of anxiety and somatoform disorder.

Dr. Ceide joined the Geriatric Psychiatry Division at Montefiore Einstein in 2013. She is a co-investigator on several pilot programs to serve depressed and homebound older adults, including the Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Montefiore Home Care Psychotherapy Program for Depressed, Cognitively Impaired Patients (MHCPP-DCI) and the NYS Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Grant Decreasing Depression and Increasing Social Connectedness Among NYC’s Older Adults. Dr. Ceide was awarded the Albert Einstein College of Medicine KL2 Scholars Award for mentored research development in 2017, titled The Biological and Structural Correlates of Apathy in Dementia Pathogenesis. She completed the Einstein Clinical Research Training Program Master’s in Science Program.

Dr. Betzler is a psychiatrist with interests in community mental health, outpatient psychiatry, integrated treatment of mental illness and primary care, addiction psychiatry, emergency psychiatry and population health. He teaches first-year medical students in Introduction to Clinical Medicine, second-year medical students on schizophrenia and oversees the outpatient clinical rotation for third-year students at Montefiore Behavioral Health Center. Additionally, he teaches fourth-year psychiatric residents in administrative psychiatry and addiction fellows about alcohol abuse.

Dr. Betzler graduated from Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed his residency at Montefiore Einstein. He is board certified and serves on several clinical and administrative committees.

Dr. Katsnelson is a psychiatrist interested in cultural psychiatry, psychodynamic group and individual psychotherapy and mind-body psychotherapy. She completed her psychiatric residency at Albert Einstein College of Medicine after completing a BA in psychology and medical school at the University of Michigan. She joined Montefiore Einstein in 1991.

Dr. Katsnelson is a member of the American Group Psychotherapy Association (AGPA) and a certified group psychotherapist. She served on the UJA Task Force on Immigration and received the Rock Sleyster Memorial Scholarship in Psychiatry, as well as the Milton Rosenbaum Award.

Dr. Rooney graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also earned her Doctor of Medicine degree. While in medical school, she completed a clinical research year at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Dr. Rooney later completed her residency in adult psychiatry at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) and her fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at New York University. Dr. Rooney’s interests include acute care psychiatry, public psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and trainee education.

Dr. Rotter is a forensic psychiatrist at Montefiore Einstein. He trained in clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and in forensic psychiatry at Yale University. Dr. Rotter leads a teaching, research and clinical service program for Montefiore Einstein and the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH).  

In his OMH role, Dr. Rotter is Senior Forensic Advisor to the Commissioner of the Director of NYS OMH and Director of the Division of Forensic Services at Bronx Psychiatric Center. In addition, Dr. Rotter is the Medical Director of the EAC Network, whose Criminal Justice Division provides mental health diversion services in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, while serving the mental health courts and re-entry services for inmates leaving Rikers Island and New York State prisons. EAC’s Health Services Division collaborates with Medicaid’s Health Homes and managed care organizations to coordinate care for high-risk/high-need populations.

Dr. Rotter is the creator and Project Director of SPECTRM, a research, training and treatment program aimed at helping to meet the needs of individuals with mental illness who have a history of incarceration. Dr. Rotter has researched, presented and published in areas related to forensic training, violence risk assessment, treatment and management of mentally ill offenders, the insanity defense, criminal recidivism and mental health diversion and re-entry.

In 2009, Dr. Rotter received the Outstanding Teacher in a Forensic Fellowship Program Award from the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) and in 2017, Dr. Rotter was awarded Forensic Psychiatry Fellowship Teacher of the Year from the NYU School of Medicine for his contributions to the didactic curriculum shared by all the NYC-based forensic fellowships.

Dr. Scalmati is board certified in general and geriatric psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. She received an MD and PhD from the University of Modena, Italy, and completed her training in general and geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Einstein. Dr. Scalmati’s areas of interest include medical education, the provision of trauma-informed care in social service agencies and the medical care system, the long-term effects of trauma, the improvement in the delivery of mental health services to trauma survivors, elder mistreatment, intervention to address staff burnout and the development of training models to improve the delivery of care.

Dr. Scalmati has worked to develop a curriculum to integrate knowledge of trauma studies and geriatrics and to adapt the concept of trauma-informed care to geriatrics. She is committed to establishing collaborative care models between academic institutions and community agencies and enhancing the collaboration between providers of geriatric medicine and mental health professionals. She has received grants from the UJA-Federation of New York and the Butler Foundation.

Dr. Vaughn completed undergraduate studies in human biology with a minor in African and African American studies at Stanford University, graduating with interdisciplinary honors. She received her master’s in public health at Columbia University and her medical doctorate from the University of Washington. She subsequently completed psychiatry residency training and a chief resident year at New York University Medical Center. As a resident, she was awarded the APA Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Minority Fellowship and the Laughlin Fellowship by the American College of Psychiatrists. Dr. Vaughn completed fellowship training in psychosomatic medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. She was named a 2020-2021 Harvard Macy Institute Scholar in the Program for Educators in Health Professions, which has supported her commitment to innovation in education and curriculum development. Her interests include global mental health, reproductive psychiatry and neuropsychiatry.

Dr. Klein completed her adult psychiatry residency at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University and her child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University/Weill Cornell. During her training, she was involved in the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights (WCCHR), conducting asylum evaluations, and volunteered at the Weill Cornell Medicine Wellness Clinic, a medical student-run mental health clinic for LGBTQ+ individuals. Dr. Klein’s interests include emergency psychiatry, psychodynamic psychotherapy and mental health technology.