Peter Buirski

Dean
Ph.D. Adelphi University, 1969

Area of Specialization
Psychoanalytic theories of personality, with a special interest in Intersubjectivity Theory and Self Psychology; psychoanalysis and psychotherapy; couples therapy; group and organizational behavior; primate personality and behavior

Publication Areas
Intersubjectivity Theory and Self Psychology; psychoanalytic theory and therapy; primate behavior and personality

Mark Aoyagi

Clinical Assistant Professor
Director of Sport and Performance Psychology Program
Ph.D., University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006 +

Areas of Interest
Sport and performance psychology; team effectiveness; training and ethics in sport psychology; individual growth, development, and fulfillment through sport; sport as a mechanism for social change

Professional activities include
American College of Sports Medicine, American Psychological Association, Association for Applied Sport Psychology.

Publication areas
Team effectiveness, leadership, satisfaction, motivation, best practices in sport psychology, ethics

Tom Barrett

Clinical Associate Professor
MA, Ph.D. West Virgnia University.
Senior Mental Health Consultant for the World Health Organization; previously Mental Health Director, State of Colorado.

Interest Areas
Evaluating the effectiveness of mental health services; evaluating and improving mental health services in low and middle income countries around the world. Professional Activities include: Consultant for the World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland; Leader Advisory Board, People to People Ambassador Program; Adjunct Faculty, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center; Past president of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD); American Psychological Association.

Publication Areas
Performance Measures for Evaluating and Improving Mental Health Services, People with mental Illnesses in Jails and Prisons, Developing Evaluation Instruments for Mental Health Systems in Low and Middle Income Countries.

Jenny Cornish

Assistant Professor
Director of Clinical Training and Internship Consortium
Ph.D. California School of Professional Psychology, Los Angeles , 1982
ABPP Counseling Psychology, 2007

Interest Areas

Supervision and training, ethics and professional issues, multiculturalism, group psychotherapy, adolescent and adult development, creativity.  Professional activities include:  American Psychological Association Council of Representatives, APA Education and Training Caucus, Council of Chairs of Training Councils, APA Division 17, Federal Education Advocacy, Association of Counseling Center Training Agencies, Colorado Psychological Association, Psychology Internship Directors of Colorado.

Publication areas

Supervision and training, issues in university counseling centers, multiculturalism; consulting editor for Professional Psychology: Research and Practice and also for Training and Education in Professional Psychology

Judith E. Fox

Assistant Professor
Director, International Disaster Psychology Program
Ph.D. University of Kansas, 1981

Area of Specialization
Teaching and clinical interests include the impact of trauma on development, diagnosis and treatment of children and their families, child/adolescent psychotherapy and parent consultation, HIV-AIDS, homeless youth and the treatment of trauma. Supervision of graduate students who are working with child/adolescent clients and their families. Supervised students doing consultation work with Head Start. Research interests include stress and coping in traumatized child/adolescent populations, and the implications of attachment theory in the development of psychological and psychosocial interventions for traumatized international populations. Currently works with a variety of governmental and non-governmental organizations treating trauma-effected populations in Bosnia , Croatia and Serbia developing international field-work experiences for graduate students. Before coming to the University of Denver, Dr. Fox worked with chronically medically ill populations as Head of Psychology and Outpatient Psychosocial Services in the Department of Medicine at National Jewish Hospital. She has worked with veterans in the Veterans Administration Medical Centers of Denver and Topeka and developed and provided psychosocial consultation liaison services to veterans with HIV/AIDS.

Kim Gorgens

Clinical Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Southern Illinois University, 1998

Area of Specialization
Issues in Measurement (MAFP, IDP, and Psy.D.), Forensics I (MAFP), Psychology of Criminal Behavior (MAFP), Psychophysiology (Psy.D.), Clinical Neuropsychology (Psy.D.), Health Psychology (Psy.D.) and Introductory Seminar (Psy.D.). Lecturing, consulting and public outreach in the areas of health and biological psychology, disability and research design. Professional and research interests include the inclusion of disability awareness in diversity education; neurobiological models of trauma, criminality and mental illness; currently working on the confirmation of a structural model of the biopsychosocial function of adults with histories of childhood maltreatment. submitted a grant proposal to develop and implement an assistive technology (AT) device, Disability Evacuation and Emergency Preparedness (DEEP). DEEP is an environmentally aware navigational prompting system that is designed to use the microprocessor capacity of AT devices to provide its user a pathway to interior resources or, in an emergency, an accessible route for evacuation; a 2-way means of communication or, if rescue is needed, data about the user's exact location within a structure.

Publication Areas
Programs for pediatric oncology patients, physical therapy and stroke patients, psychopathology and violence.

Lynett Henderson-Metzger

Clinical Assistant Professor
PsyD, University of Denver, 2003
J.D., University of Denver, 1997

Area of Specialization
Forensic psychology, social justice, domestic violence, attachment, systems theory, student training issues and self care; developmental differences; integration between law and psychology.

Publication Areas
Intimate violence and gender; race and congressional redistricting

Michael Karson

Ph.D. University of Michigan, 1978
J.D. Western New England College, 2000

I received my Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan in 1978 and practiced psychology for 25 years before entering academia. While I was in full-time practice, I tried to do as many different things as possible. I conducted psychotherapies privately and also in a community clinic, doing short-term cognitive and systems work with individuals and couples, and open-ended psychoanalytic therapy with adults. Since I am at bottom a behaviorist, I have tried to integrate different theoretical approaches into a cohesive, if idiosyncratic, blend. I also have an industrial practice, largely through a computer program I co-authored that interprets the 16PF to help organizations decide whom to hire or promote. (I have also co-authored a program that interprets the 16PF for clinicians.) My efforts at theory integration are represented by various chapters in my books. My work with the 16PF led to my writing, with 2 co-authors, 16PF Interpretation in Clinical Practice , which has also been published in Spanish, German, and Croatian.

I worked in the child welfare system for two decades, consulting on 10,000 cases and individually evaluating 800 children and 1000 parents. This work led to my writing Patterns of Child Abuse: How Dysfunctional Transactions are Replicated in Individuals, Families, and the Child Welfare System . Currently, I consult with Colorado's child welfare agency and with various counties from time to time. While in practice, I would testify in termination and custody trials fairly regularly. I thought the courtroom was so interesting that I went to law school in midlife. I was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts, but I have never practiced law except to consult with attorneys about examining and cross-examining mental health witnesses.

Teaching graduate students my approach to early memories led to my writing Using Early Memories in Psychotherapy: Roadmaps to Presenting Problems and Treatment Impasses . I describe a step by step method for interpreting memories, which I see as indicating a pattern or schema for understanding the world, a pattern that is often outmoded in some manner that can produce idiosyncratic expectations and psychological symptoms. I advocate using the patient's vocabulary and imagery in therapy, rather than those of some theorist.

Currently, I am exceedingly interested in the way privilege, power and gender dynamics, and categorical approaches to people constrain the vitality of the therapeutic relationship and hinder the discovery of the client and the client's world. I think that for a long time, theater professionals have struggled with the same problems therapists encounter in the effort to create a lively space, to facilitate meaningful human narratives, and to engage and change people, so I wonder what we can learn from them. This has led to my current project, Deadly Therapy: How Rules, Expectations, and Categories Stifle Creativity and How Performance Theory Can Help .

My integrative approach to theory has found a happy home at DU. My colleagues are genuinely interested in psychology and I find that our approach to multiculturalism and individual differences is itself multicultural, so that we don't all have to agree. I think it's exciting for students to hear so many different points of view. I believe it is important for students to be multilingual (in the sense of knowing different theories), so they can select a theory to fit the situation at hand.

Fernand Lubuguin

Clinical Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Colorado at Boulder, 1993

Area of Specialization
Descriptive Psychology; ethnic minority issues, including cultural competence, acculturation, and ethnic identification; couples/marital treatment; anger management; and providing psychotherapy in managed care settings

Publication Areas
Acculturation of culturally displaced persons

Hale Martin

Clinical Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, 1993

Area of Specialization
Personality, cognitive, and neuropsychological assessment; therapeutic assessment; intersubjective/self-psychology, cognitive-behavioral, and systems approaches to treatment; masculinity-femininity; personality disorders; couples therapy; Spanish speaking populations

Publication Areas
Psychological assessment, masculinity-femininity, assessment in the managed care environment, therapeutic assessment.

John W. McNeill

Associate Professor
Psy.D. University of Denver, 1983

Area of Specialization
Behavior analysis theory, methods, and practice; philosophy of science; Daoist/Buddhist philosophy and mindfulness practice

Publication Areas
Behavior therapy, behavioral medicine, clinical assessment

Lavita Nadkarni

Assistant Professor
Director of Forensic Studies
Ph.D. Adelphi University, 1995

Area of Specialization
Psychoanalytic psychotherapy; psychological assessment; forensic psychological theory and practice; child custody, separation and divorce; treatment of children from non-intact families; grandparents rights; child abuse and neglect; adolescent truancy; psychologist as an expert witness; PTSD, disability and law enforcement assessments

Publication Areas
Entitlement; child custody guidelines, truancy

Artur Poczwardowski

Associate Professor
Ph.D. University of Utah, 1997

Areas of Interest

Sport/performance psychology practice; curriculum development and teaching in sport/performance psychology; interpersonal relationships in sport/performance; psychological skills training; knowledge generation and application

Publication Areas

Models in sport psychology service delivery for performance enhancement and psychological well-being; professional philosophy in sport psychology consulting; coach-athlete relationships; coping strategies in elite performers in sports and arts; scientific methodology is sport and exercise psychology

Steve Portenga

Ph.D. University of Missouri, Columbia

Area of Specialization
Counseling psychology, sport psychology, performance enhancement skills, team building, conflict management.

Lupe-Rebeka Samaniego

Clinical Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Oklahoma State University, 1977

Area of Specialization
Psychotherapy and psychoanalytic theory, research and treatment of parent-loss patients, mourning and loss

Publication Areas
Research and treatment of loss (divorce, death), depression as related to loss, mourning, psychoanalytic psychotherapy

Janet Shriberg

Instructor
Ed.D. Teachers College, Columbia University, 2008
MPH, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 1995

Interest Areas
Ten years working with local and international humanitarian aid organizations on programs to provide disaster recovery and psychosocial support in Costa Rica, Venezuela, El Salvador, Tanzania and Liberia. Assisted in disaster relief programs for Project Liberty in NYC following the events of 9-11, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the Gulf States. Particular research and practice interests include the design and delivery of quality education programs in postwar settings, child protection, and preventing gender-based violence in situations of forced displacement.

Publication Areas
International disaster psychology; education in emergencies and early reconstruction; maternal and child health; neurogenetics

Shelly Smith-Acuna

Assistant Professor
Ph.D. Loyola University of Chicago, 1989

Area of Specialization
Family systems theory; integration of community, family and individual interventions; psychotherapy process and outcome research; couples therapy; issue of culture and gender in family therapy

Publication Areas
Gifted children, process of psychotherapy with children

Ragnar Storaasli

Clinical Associate Professor

Area of Specialization
Behavior philosophy, theory and treatment, brief therapy models, management of high risk problems, behavioral medicine and research design

Publication Areas
Prevention and treatment of marital problems, chronic pain, managed health care, treatment outcomes and theoretical issues.