Faculty
The faculty of the University of Washington Master of Arts in Applied Child & Adolescent Psychology: Prevention & Treatment program include nationally recognized experts in the field of child psychology. They are affiliated with the UW Department of Psychology, the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Center for Child & Family Well-Being.
Faculty Leadership
Lynn Fainsilber Katz, Ph.D. — Director
Lynn Fainsilber Katz, the director of the Master of Arts in Applied Child & Adolescent Psychology: Prevention & Treatment program, is a research professor in child clinical psychology and developmental psychology in the Department of Psychology and associate director of the UW’s Center for Child & Family Well-Being. A licensed clinical psychologist and nationally recognized expert in the area of family relations, Katz has 25 years of experience working with children and families on issues relating to marital conflict, parenting and family relationships. She has received over $10 million of funding from the National Institutes of Health for her work on domestic violence, parenting, childhood aggression, adolescent depression and family adjustment in the context of pediatric cancer. Katz earned her doctorate in psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and joined the UW faculty in 1992.
Liliana Lengua, Ph.D.
Liliana Lengua is the Maritz Family Foundation Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology and director of the UW's Center for Child & Family Well-Being. A licensed clinical psychologist, Lengua studies the effects of adversity on children, examining risk and protective factors that contribute to children’s resilience or vulnerability. She has been an investigator on several federally funded research projects, including those examining the development of executive function; the effects of neighborhood, family and peers on adolescent substance use; and childhood risk factors for the emergence of adult mental health problems. A member of the UW faculty since 1996, Lengua earned her doctorate from Arizona State University.
Georganna Sedlar, Ph.D.
Georganna Sedlar is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the UW School of Medicine and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Psychology. She is also a licensed clinical psychologist. Her clinical activities include evaluation and consultation at Harborview Medical Center's Foster Care Clinic, clinical supervision of psychology graduate students and psychiatry fellows, and clinical consultation to community mental health providers. Sedlar also serves as a consulting psychologist for the Foster Care Assessment Program. She is involved in various workforce development and enhancement projects, including the Integrated Health Care Training Program, a Washington state-funded initiative to train psychiatrists and other health care providers in evidence-based, integrated behavioral health care; and CBT Plus, a statewide program to train community-based mental health providers in delivering evidence-based practices for children in cognitive behavioral therapy for trauma, anxiety and depression. She has a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Teaching Faculty
Molly Cevasco, Ph.D.
Molly Cevasco is a clinical psychologist and works within the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) program at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where she specializes in the provision of services to individuals with complex mental health needs, trauma and autism. Cevasco has worked to develop culturally and linguistically appropriate DBT services in Spanish as the DBT program works to expand its services to culturally, linguistically and socioeconomically diverse clientele. She also specializes in the provision of trauma-focused interventions for neurodiverse children and teens with varying cognitive and language skills. Cevasco earned her doctorate in psychology from the University of Washington and is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst.
Kyrill Gurtovenko, Ph.D.
Kyrill Gurtovenko is an acting assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington and an attending psychologist at Seattle Children's Hospital. His background is in the study of developmental psychopathology, emotion regulation, parenting and family adjustment. His current areas of interest and work include assessment and intervention for adolescent suicidality, self-injury and emotion dysregulation. Gurtovenko co-directs the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital. He teaches courses on child and adolescent behavior disorders and evidence based approaches to child and adolescent treatment at the University of Washington.
Marisa Keller, Ph.D.
Marisa Keller is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in working with families across the lifespan, from perinatal mental health care, to childhood and adolescence, to parenting children of all ages. Her areas of focus include working with individuals experiencing significant emotional, behavioral and interpersonal dysregulation; suicidality, self-harm and other impulsive and/or life threatening behaviors; perinatal mood and anxiety disorders; and trauma therapy. She is a DBT-Linehan Board of Certification certified clinician and also has a certification in perinatal mental health. As a cis-gender, bisexual, multiracial individual, she is passionate about the synthesis between decolonial, anti-oppressive psychology and evidence-based treatment. She earned her doctorate in clinical psychology at Palo Alto University.
Won-Fong Lau Johnson, Ph.D., NCSP
Won-Fong Lau Johnson is a licensed clinical psychologist and a nationally certified school psychologist. She’s the assistant director of service systems at the UCLA-Duke University National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. Lau Johnson has clinical experience working in schools, community mental health and hospital settings. Both providing direct service and serving as an advocate for equitable behavioral healthcare are of great important to her. As someone who identifies as a woman of color with a disability, she’s passionate about creating more inclusivity and working with historically underrepresented populations. She has dedicated her career to advocating for change in policies and conducting research on culturally responsive treatments for Black, Indigenous and People of Color, and specializes in trauma-informed practice. She’s a certified trainer for Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Trauma in Schools (CBITS), an evidence-based intervention. She recently created a Racial Trauma Module (RTM) to be integrated in the program. That training (CBITS+RTM) is now available.
Joshua Leblang, Ed.S., LMHC, LCPC
Joshua Leblang has spent the past 25 years working with youth involved in juvenile justice and welfare and implementing evidenced-based treatments designed to reduce recidivism and empower caregivers. He also works with young people who are placed in residential care and assists them for an effective transition back home. He was a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Washington, and currently is an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Psychology. He has extensive experience in implementing programs throughout the United States, New Zealand, England and Norway.
Anthony Osuna, Ph.D.
Anthony Osuna is a postdoctoral fellow at Seattle Children's Hospital. His clinical expertise relates to autism spectrum disorders and developmental disabilities, and his research focuses on the intersection of social media and social skills interventions. He has developed a novel social media skills intervention (SELFI) that aims to support the online socialization of autistic adults, which he continues to refine and research. Osuna is a first-generation college graduate and as a BIPOC individual, he is passionate about mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds and addressing systemic barriers that keep minority groups out of academia. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from UC Santa Barbara.
Jennifer Tininenko, Ph.D.
Jennifer Tininenko is an affiliate assistant professor in the University of Washington Department of Psychology. She’s also the director of the Child Anxiety Center at the Evidence Based Treatment Centers of Seattle (EBTCS). Tininenko specializes in delivering evidence-based interventions for pediatric anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and related disorders. She has developed intensive outpatient treatment programs at EBTCS for those children and teens who suffer from highly impairing OCD, other anxiety disorders and school refusal. She’s especially interested in the role of caregivers for increasing effectiveness of treatments. Tininenko delivers talks and trainings in anxiety disorders to other professionals, school personnel and students, and provides clinical supervision for practicum students and post-doctoral fellows. She regularly teaches a course on anxiety and mood disorders at the University of Washington.
Stephanie F. Thompson, Ph.D., ABPP
Stephanie F. Thompson is a research scientist at the UW Center for Child and Family Well-Being. Her research focuses on promoting emotional health in individuals during pregnancy and scaffolding responsive parenting across children’s development. Thompson is particularly interested in supporting individuals living in low-income contexts as well as those experiencing heightened levels of anxiety and depression. Her work is framed around the belief that buttressing parental mental health and parenting creates the path towards children’s cognitive, physical and emotional well-being. Thompson serves as an academic mentor for the Program and teaches the courses on Assessment & Diagnosis of Child Psychopathology as well as Children’s Social & Emotional Development. Thompson earned her doctorate at the UW.
Cindy Trevino, Ph.D.
Cindy Trevino is a faculty member at the University of Washington in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and an attending psychologist at Seattle Children's. She specializes in early childhood mental health, Latino mental health, and working with children with complex medical needs, including children with conditions ranging from cleft palate to genetic syndromes. Her research focuses on identifying and preventing the impacts of social risks and adversity on child behavioral health in under-represented populations (e.g., rural and Latinx families).
Stacy Shaw Welch, Ph.D.
Stacy Shaw Welch is a clinical psychologist and innovator who is passionate about the research and treatment of anxiety disorders. Welch is an affiliate assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington and a clinical psychologist and innovator who is passionate about the research and treatment of anxiety disorders. Welch co-founded the Evidence Based Treatment Centers of Seattle (EBTCS) and started the Anxiety Center of Seattle, the Child Anxiety Center of Seattle and the first intensive outpatient treatment program (IOTP) for pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder in the region. She served in executive and clinical director roles at these centers for 15 years. One of Welch's great joys is mentoring students, and she was proud to hand over the directorships of each center to former postdocs and trainees when she left in January of 2021 to help launch a non-profit. Welch assumed a role as the clinic director of Rogers Behavioral Health in Seattle, a not-for-profit hospital specializing in evidence-based treatment for anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and other conditions requiring intensive outpatient or partial hospitalization. Welch will resume practicing, supervising and training in her private practice in Fremont while she dreams up her next big project. She has published numerous scientific articles in the anxiety disorders area as well as in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and enjoys training and teaching other clinicians.
Dannielle Whiley
Dannielle Whiley is a seventh year Ph.D. student in child clinical psychology at the University of Washington. She is broadly interested in promoting well-being and healthy outcomes for Black families across the perinatal period. Her research explores how generational trauma impacts Black maternal health and how mindfulness-based intervention might shape infant development by supporting sensitive parenting. She serves as co-chair of her department's diversity steering committee and focuses on improving diverse representation in graduate courses and increasing access to the psychology major for undergraduates. Whiley recently offered an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Mindfulness here at the UW and is looking forward to co-teaching Foundations of Developmental Psychology with Katz.