Melissa joined the AIMS Center in 2014 and supports various aspects of its education and training programs. Prior to the AIMS Center, she worked in K-12 education as an ESL teacher in New York City and in higher education teaching English at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. Melissa completed a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Northern Colorado and a master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from New York University.

Lydia Chwastiak is a Professor in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Global Health in the UW School of Public Health. She received her MD degree from the University of Pennsylvania, completed residencies in both internal medicine and psychiatry, and obtained research training through an NRSA-funded fellowship in psychiatry and primary care at the University of Washington. Over the past eighteen years, her research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of complex patients who have serious mental illness and co-morbid chronic medical conditions. She has authored or co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and has been the Principal Investigator or a co-Investigator on numerous (federally and non-federally) funded research projects to develop and implement integrated care interventions to improve outcomes among complex patients in low-resource settings.
Dr. Chwastiak has many years of experience as a psychiatric consultant in Washington State’s Mental Health Integration Program (MHIP), and co-led an innovative rotation related to implementation of collaborative care for psychiatry fellows in the UW Integrated Care Training Program. She is the Principal Investigator and co-Director of the SAMHSA-funded Northwest Mental Health Technology Transfer Center (NW-MHTTC), which aims to support the implementation of evidence-based practices for patients with serious mental illness across a variety of settings in HHS Region 10 (Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington). She leads the training activities related to integrated care for the NW-MHTTC, which includes training of a broad workforce (psychiatrists, nurses, primary care providers, social workers) in both primary care community mental health settings. 

Rebecca L. Shermer, PhD received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1992, where she initially received training in Social Problem-Solving Therapy under the supervision of Dr. Art Nezu. She completed her clinical and post-doctoral training at Duke University Medical Center and Philadelphia Geriatric Center, with a primary focus on depression in medically ill older adults.
Dr. Shermer’s clinical and research activities have focused on short-term, evidenced-based treatment of mood disorders. She has been a group and individual PST trainer for over 10 years. Additionally, Dr. Shermer serves as a treatment fidelity expert for outcome research comparing short-term treatments for depression.

Kristi Malmstrom joined the AIMS Center in January of 2018 as a Program Assistant, providing support for the implementation of Collaborative Care and a number of AIMS Center projects. Kristi has been a part of the UW community since 2011, as an undergraduate and a staff member. During her time as a student, she provided research assistance in a memory and cognition lab under Geoff Loftus, studying facial recognition as it relates to eye-witness accounts. Kristi graduated from the University of Washington in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. Her time in the program fostered an interest in the stigma surrounding mental health and the issue of mental health care accessibility. 

Jessica Whitfield, MD, MPH, serves as an Acting Assistant Professor in the Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She is a psychiatric consultant for the UW’s Behavioral Health Integration Program (BHIP) and the Outpatient Psychiatric Clinic at the UW Medical Center. She also provides program assistance for the Integrated Care Training Program Fellowship as a clinical supervisor and co-coordinator for the implementation, quality improvement, and collaborative care rotations. She received her medical degree from Saint Louis University School of Medicine and her Masters of Public Health from Columbia University. She completed her residency in General Adult Psychiatry at Brown University as well as the Integrated Care Training Program Fellowship at UW. 

Sara joined the AIMS Center in March 2020 as an instructional designer, supporting its numerous education and training projects and programs. Before coming to the AIMS Center, she worked at North Seattle College, teaching language and culture, developing curriculum, marketing internationally, and managing and training the staff of the campus tutoring center. Much of her work in higher education focused on equity, access, and representation for non-native English speakers. She also worked as an EFL instructor in Hiroshima, Japan, prior to moving to Seattle.
Sara received a Bachelor of Science degree in Communication Sciences & Disorders from the University of Texas at Austin and completed her Master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at Seattle University. 

Betsy has a background in Project Management and Data Collection, and supports programs within the Integrated Care Training Program (ICTP) funded by the State of Washington, including the Community Based Integrated Care Fellowship and the Psychiatry and Addictions Case Conference (UW PACC). She works closely with faculty and staff on these programs. She also has an interest in Data Analysis, and is an active member of the ICTP and AIMS Center Analysis Teams. Before joining the AIMS Center in 2016, she worked for Battelle Memorial Institute as Project Manager, overseeing the data collection department in the Seattle office for over 10 years. She has her Project Management Professional Certification, and has been certified since 2012. She is an experience REDCap and SPSS programmer. 

Annie McGuire began her career in 2004 working in community mental health and intensive outpatient programs. She also spent several years working as a counselor in vocational rehabilitation. Annie first started working in primary care in 2011, providing Collaborative Care at a Federally Qualified Health Center in Seattle, WA. She gained teaching experience while working as Behavioral Science Faculty at a family medicine residency clinic with Providence Medical Group (PMG) in Olympia, WA. Most recently, Annie worked with PMG as the Clinical Director for Behavioral Health Integration for 10 primary care clinics across SW Washington.
Joining the AIMS Center in 2021, Annie has experience with training and implementation of evidence-based models including Collaborative Care and SBIRT, and various therapeutic interventions including problem-solving treatment and motivational interviewing. Annie received a Master’s of Science in Rehabilitation Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2007. She also received a Master’s in Healthcare Administration from the University of Providence in 2020. 

Dr. Denise Chang is a psychiatrist and Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Washington.  Dr. Chang completed her medical degree at the University of Iowa and then went on to complete residency training in psychiatry and a fellowship in Consult-Liaison psychiatry at the University of Washington.  Following fellowship, she started on the faculty at the University of Washington, working as a psychiatric consultant for primary care clinics working within a Collaborative Care model.  She is now the Medical Director of the Behavioral Health Integration Program, the University of Washington’s Collaborative Care program, and the Medical Lead for the Mental Health Integration Program, another state-wide Collaborative Care program.  Her faculty appointment also involves work with the Integrated Care Training Program, assisting in training psychiatrists and other health care providers in Collaborative Care. 
Dr. Chang also has substantial experience in quality improvement work and was the Medical Lead for the Depression Population Approach to Health project at the University of Washington, which was part of a larger Transforming Clinical Practice Initiatives grant from the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Prior to the AIMS Center, Esther was a Research Coordinator for a qualitative research study working to address critical gaps in our current healthcare data collection systems that prohibit the identification of successful and largescale prevention and intervention targets to address injury disparities. She was also a Program Coordinator for a health and racial equity initiative at Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center. She graduated from the University of Washington with her bachelor’s in public health/global health in 2020. 
 
Outside of work, Esther enjoys playing tennis, hiking, and traveling with family and friends.