Charlene Reynolds, Clinical Director
Charlene Reynolds is the Clinical Director for the Centre for Mental Health, Family and Community Medicine and Primary Care. She completed her Bachelors in Physical Therapy at University of Toronto (U of T) and has a Masters in Science through the Institute of Medical Sciences, with Collaboration in Neuroscience from U of T. Clinically, Charlene worked at Sick Kids for more than 18 years, both as a physical therapist and a PT Practitioner. At UHN, Charlene developed the role of Allied Health Educator in the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre at Toronto General Hospital, and was the Manager of Allied Health and Geriatrics at Toronto Western Hospital. She held Lecturer status in the Physical Therapy Department at U of T and was past Curriculum Coordinator for the Neurological Physical Therapy component of the program. As Clinical Director, Charlene focuses on supporting programs in their efforts to provide effective, patient-focused, quality care. Her leadership philosophy embraces teamwork and interprofessional collaboration with a positive leadership/appreciative inquiry influence.
Dr. Susan Abbey, Psychiatrist-in-ChiefDr. Susan Abbey is the Psychiatrist-in-Chief at UHN and a Professor at University of Toronto's Department of Psychiatry. A member of the Department of Psychiatry since 1991, she has received numerous academic awards and honours, including the Robin Hunter Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Psychiatric Education and the Prix d'Excellence from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. She has been the President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.
Dr. Abbey's research and clinical interests relate to the psychiatric care of patients in medical and surgical settings, and the use of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in the management of medical illness. She was an early adopter of Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression (IPT), and has taught IPT to international audiences. She has been teaching MSBR since 2000 and is part of a research group studying the role of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) in preventing depressive relapse following rTMS treatment.
Marla Kaye, Manager
Marla Kaye is the Senior Clinical Manager (Interim) at the Centre for Mental Health leading a portfolio of interdisciplinary outpatient mental health clinics and community programs. She is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario and a member of the Ontario Association of Mental Health Professionals. She has 30 years of experience in the mental health field. Before joining UHN in 2018, Marla was a Program Manager of Counselling Services at Canadian Hearing Society and had a successful private practice in Toronto.
She has presented twice at the national conference for the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association on the topics of
Making Your Services Accessible to Deaf and Hard of Hearing Clients and
Burnout Prevention and Care: Increasing Clinical Resiliencies Through Mindfulness Compassion Practices. Marla is co-chair of the Acute Care Programs Leadership Forum at UHN. A champion of patient-centred care, she is committed to supporting staff in delivering accessible quality service and treatment.
Jenna McLeod, Operations Lead (Interim)
Jenna McLeod holds a Master of Social Work degree from Wilfrid Laurier University and is a certified teacher of the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy program, graduating from the University of California San Diego Center for Mindfulness. In addition, Jenna's interests in psychotherapy have led her to complete certificates in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy through the University of Toronto. As the Team Lead for the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression, Jenna leads and supports the team in providing high-quality care for patients and families. She has primarily worked in acute care settings with individuals with severe mental illnesses and has also led program development initiatives and contributed to research endeavours focused on behavioural activation. Jenna's clinical work focuses on individual and group therapy, navigation and resources and family support. Jenna's approach to care is collaborative and embodies a commitment to holistic patient-centred care.
Administrative Assistants
Sunny Hong (Physician Admin)
Staff Physicians
Dr. Venkat Bhat, MD, MSc, FRCPC, DABPN
Dr. Venkat Bhat is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and Director of the Interventional Psychiatry Program at St. Michael's Hospital. At the University Health Network, he leads depression and mental health research initiatives within the Centre for Advancing Neurotechnological Innovation to Application (CRANIA) and holds research appointments within the KITE and Krembil Research Institutes to advance this work. At the Toronto Western Hospital and the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression, he has a focus on invasive neurostimulation and works with specific neurology/neurosurgery programs interfacing with neuropsychiatry: he oversees assessment, device programming and research initiatives for patients undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation for psychiatric indications, and the cohort undergoing invasive brain monitoring and neurosurgical intervention for Epilepsy. Dr. Bhat deeply believes that interdisciplinary approaches are needed to get deeper insights into the human mind, his research program is supported by the major funding bodies both in Canada and the US.
Dr. Bhat completed residency and graduate training in psychiatry at McGill University followed by fellowship training in various Interventional Psychiatry domains at the University of Toronto, Harvard and Duke Universities respectively.
Dr. Sidney Kennedy, MD, FRCPCDr. Sidney H. Kennedy is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Senior Scientist at the Krembil Research Institute and a Member of the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression.
He has published more than 500 peer-reviewed publications and 11 books on depression and related topics, including antidepressant drug mechanisms and clinical efficacy, neuroimaging as a tool to predict treatment response, and neurostimulation therapies.
Dr. Kennedy is the founding chair of the Canadian Network for Mood and Anxiety Treatments and co-lead in Guidelines for Major Depressive Disorder. He is also the founding lead investigator of the Canadian biomarker Network in Depression (CAN-BIND) and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Science and the Royal Society of Canada.
Dr. Rodrigo Mansur, MD, PhD
Dr. Mansur is a staff psychiatrist at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Mansur completed his medical degree at the Universidade Federal de São Paulo/Escola Paulista de Medicina (UNIFESP/EPM), Brazil. He received his Psychiatry residency training and PhD at UNIFESP/EPM; and Fellowship training in Psychiatry at the University of Toronto. Dr. Mansur's primary clinical and research efforts focus on the intersection between metabolic and mood disorders, specifically the epidemiological, phenomenological and mechanistic aspects of these frequently co-occurring conditions. His interests include identifying novel biological mechanisms and developing integrated, empirically supported preventive and therapeutic strategies. Dr. Mansur has authored multiple peer-reviewed scientific articles and in 2016 received the Gerald L. Klerman Young Investigator Award of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA).
Dr. Roger McIntyre, MD, FRCPCDr. Roger McIntyre is a Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at the University of Toronto and Head of the Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit at the University Health Network.
He is also Executive Director of the Brain and Cognition Discovery Foundation in Toronto, Director and co-Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) in Chicago, Illinois, Professor and Nanshan Scholar at Guangzhou Medical University, Adjunct Professor College of Medicine at Korea University, Clinical Professor State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York and Clinical Professor Department of Psychiatry and Neurosciences University of California School of Medicine, Riverside, California. Dr. McIntyre is the founder of the Canadian Rapid Treatment Centre of Excellence (CRTCE) and the CEO of Braxia Scientific Corp.
Dr. McIntyre has annually been named by Clarivate Analytics/Thomson Reuters as one of "The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds" since 2014. This distinction is given by publishing the largest number of articles that rank among those most frequently cited by researchers globally in 21 broad fields of science and social science during the previous decade. Dr. McIntyre has published more than 750 articles/manuscripts and has edited and/or co-edited several textbooks on mood disorders.
Dr. McIntyre is involved in multiple research endeavours which primarily aim to characterize the phenomenology, neurobiology and novel therapeutics of mood disorders. He has been especially interested in identifying innovative, rapid-acting psychotropic treatments for mood disorders. Dr. McIntyre's research has also extended into public health and implementation research at the population-based level.
Dr. McIntyre is extensively involved in medical education. He is a highly sought-after speaker at both national and international meetings. He has received several teaching awards from the University of Toronto, Department of Psychiatry and has been a recipient of the joint Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA) / Council of Psychiatric Continuing Education Award for the Most Outstanding Continuing Education Activity in Psychiatry in Canada.
Dr. McIntyre has also contributed extensively to clinical practice guidelines. For example, he is the lead author of the Florida Best Practice Psychotherapeutic Medication Guidelines for Adults with Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder as well as the International Expert Opinion on the Available Evidence and Implementation of Ketamine and Esketamine in Mood Disorders. Dr. McIntyre is also a contributor to the CANMAT guidelines for the treatment of Depressive Disorders and Bipolar Disorders as well as the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Clinical Practice Guidelines for Mood Disorders.
Dr. McIntyre completed his medical degree at Dalhousie University. He received his Psychiatry residency training and Fellowship in Psychiatric Pharmacology at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Joshua Rosenblat, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Dr. Joshua Rosenblat is a staff psychiatrist and clinician-researcher at the Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit (MDPU) within the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression at Toronto Western Hospital. His clinical and research focus is treatment-resistant unipolar and bipolar depression. He has authored and co-authored over a hundred journal articles and textbook chapters and received numerous local, national and international grants and awards. Dr. Rosenblat studied medicine at the University of Western Ontario and then completed his residency training in Psychiatry and graduate training in Pharmacology at the University of Toronto.
Dr. Rickinder Sethi, MD, FRCPC
Dr. Rickinder Sethi is a staff psychiatrist at UHN. He also provides psychiatric care in under-serviced clinics within Ontario. He completed his medical degree at the Medical University of the Americas in the West Indies and completed his residency training in the Department of Psychiatry at Western University. After residency, Dr. Sethi completed a fellowship in Psycho-Oncology and end-of-life care at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto. He has a clinical interest in novel approaches to treatment-resistant depression, including rTMS, ketamine and psilocybin.
Dr. Daphne Voineskos
Dr. Daphne Voineskos is the Medical Lead of the rTMS Clinic and is a psychiatrist in the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression at UHN. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and also works as a Clinician Scientist at the Temerty Centre for Therapeutic Brain Intervention at CAMH. She completed medical training at the University of Nottingham, England, followed by specialty training in psychiatry at the University of Toronto. As Dr. Voineskos has a long-standing dedication to research, she pursued a PhD through the Institute of Medical Science and Clinician Investigator program at the University of Toronto. After a maternity leave, she completed her PhD in September 2019. Following psychiatric residency training, and during her PhD, she undertook a research training fellowship at the Temerty Centre for Therapeutic Brain Intervention. Dr. Voineskos’ scientific impact is advancing and personalizing investigational and therapeutic brain stimulation techniques in treatment-refractory psychiatric disorders.
Dr. Voineskos has recently been named the Labatt Family Professor in Depression Biology at the University of Toronto. Her early international reputation for her research and scientific potential has been recognized locally, by the Department of Psychiatry, provincially by the prestigious John C. Polanyi Prize in Physiology/Medicine and internationally by the American Psychiatric Association. She is principal investigator or co-investigator on multiple federally and philanthropically funded studies to optimize and personalize brain stimulation delivery and is a committed mentor and supervisor to graduate students and medical trainees. Dr. Voineskos’ research program is focused on the neurobiological mechanisms and abnormalities in depression, with the translational goal of integrating these scientific findings into clinical care.
Mental Health Clinicians
Hannah Albrechtsons
Hannah is a registered occupational therapist who received her Master of Occupational Therapy degree from the University of Toronto. Hannah is passionate about supporting patients who are experiencing mental illness to achieve their goals, learn coping skills and strengthen their resilience. She is skilled in using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and Mindfulness-based treatment interventions. Hannah provides support to patients by offering short-term individual counselling sessions and co-facilitating psychotherapy groups run through the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression.
Cristina Barrios
Cristina is a bilingual registered social worker (English & Spanish) with experience working in mental health and addictions with individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds. She is passionate about providing patient-centred care and empowering patients in developing skills to cope with their mental health concerns and stressors.
Cristina's counselling approach draws from various therapeutic modalities that meet her patient's unique needs: Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy, Narrative Therapy, and Solution-focused Therapy.
Sariné Willis-O'Connor
Sariné Willis-O'Connor is a Registered Psychotherapist who champions accessibility and equity in patient care. She is proficient in American Sign Language, and has worked extensively with members of the Deaf community and with individuals with disabilities. She has published and presented psychotherapy research in Canadian and international publications and conferences, primarily on topics related to multicultural counselling. Sariné co-develops and facilitates the psychotherapy groups and services offered at the Poul Hansen Family Centre for Depression using her knowledge and skills in Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT).
rTMS Technician
