The Directors

Steven A. Rasmussen, M.D
Department Chair

Steven A. Rasmussen, MD, is Interim Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. 

Dr. Rasmussen was a member of the second graduating class of the Medical Education Program and received his MMS and MD from Brown in 1977. He completed his residency in psychiatry at Yale in 1983. Following a two year obligation with the National Health Services Corps in North Kingdom, Vermont, Dr. Rasmussen joined the Brown faculty and Butler Hospital in 1983.  He is currently an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and has been medical director at Butler Hospital since 1998.

Dr. Rasmussen is an internationally recognized expert in the course and treatment of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). More recently his primary research interest has been in neurosurgical approaches to intractable OCD and depression and the neurocircuitry of OCD. He is currently funded by four R0-1s from the NIMH, including studies of the longitudinal course of OCD, neurosurgical approaches to treatment, understanding the neurocircuitry underlying DBS effects in OCD, and a genome wide association study of OCD.  He is the author or co-author of over 100 peer reviewed publications and has given many invited presentations on the subject of OCD around the world. He has been a leader in developing bridges between campus-based and hospital-based brain science faculty at Brown.

 

Jane Eisen, M.D.
Residency Training Director

Jane Eisen, MD, is the Residency Training Director and the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs for the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior

Her training includes an M.D. degree from the New York University School of Medicine followed by a residency in Psychiatry at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. She began working in the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Clinic at Butler Hospital under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Rasmussen and has developed both clinical and research expertise in this disorder, particularly in the area of psychopathology. Dr. Eisen is currently funded by the NIMH to study course of illness in OCD, and has been involved in numerous treatment studies of OCD. In addition to her research and clinical involvement in OCD, Dr. Eisen has had a longstanding interest in education and teaching, and has been actively involved in teaching and supervision throughout her career. In 1996, she was appointed Associate Training Director of the Brown Psychiatry Residency and Director of the Core Clerkship in Psychiatry for Brown Medical School. Dr. Eisen is currently Training Director of the Brown Psychiatry Residency, having been appointed in 2003. She continues to be involved with medical student education overseeing students' elective experiences, coordinating their longitudinal electives in Psychiatry and working with 3rd and 4th students who have decided to pursue careers in Psychiatry as their advisor. Additional roles in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior including chairing the Educational Committee, as a member of the Psychiatry Management Advisory Committee, (an executive committee dealing with issues of training, research infrastructure, faculty recruitment, and promotion) and as the Co-Training Director for the Combined Neurology Psychiatry Residency.

Bob Boland, M.D.
Associate Training Director

Dr. Boland is the Associate Training Director for both General Psychiatry and Geriatric Psychiatry, the Psychiatry Clerkship Director for the Medical School and a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. 

He graduated from Georgetown University and Georgetown School of Medicine, completed a residency at the Institute of Living in Hartford and a fellowship in Psychosomatic Medicine at Georgetown/Fairfax Hospital.   He is actively involved as a teacher at all levels of training in the University, Medical School and Graduate programs.  Most significantly, he co-directs the introductory psychiatry course given to all med students at Brown and is the primary lecturer for that course.  In addition, he is the director of the Clerkship in Psychiatry.

Dr. Boland has shown scholarship with ongoing publications and is currently on the editorial board for the journals most related to his interests (psychiatry education and the interface of medicine and psychiatry), including Academic Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and FOCUS (the APA’s journal of continuing education) and is Assistant Editor for the American College of Psychiatry's Psychiatry Residents in Training Examination (PRITE). He has been active in a number of organizations and has taken leadership roles in those organizations most relevant to academic psychiatry—most notably he is a past President for the Association for Academic Psychiatry.  He sits on the Councils and chairs various committees for the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine and  the American Association of Directors of Residency Training.  In addition, he continues to hold other academic positions, for example he has continually served on various NIH study sections for the last decade, and has chaired a number of special sections for NIH. 

 

Tracey Guthrie, M.D.
Director, Residency Continuity Clinic

 

Dr. Guthrie is the Director of the Residency Continuity Clinic and the Associate Psychiatry Clerkship Director for the Medical School and is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior.

She graduated from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.  She continued her training here at the Brown Psychiatry Residency Training Program where she was a Chief Resident.  She joined the Butler Hospital staff and the Brown faculty in 1999 where she worked as Assistant Unit Chief of the Kent Unit at Butler Hospital.  She served as the President of the Butler Hospital Medical Staff Association from 2005-2007.
She is currently the Assistant Unit Chief on Delmonico 3 at Butler Hospital.

Dr. Guthrie has been involved in Medical Student Education as Associate Director for the Brown Medical School Clerkship in Psychiatry.  She is currently also the Director for the Residency Continuity Clinic (RCC), which provides the Residents with direct supervision and education during their longitudinal outpatient clinic. 

 

Katharine Phillips M.D.,
Director of Research in Residency Training

 

Dr. Katharine Phillips is Director of Research Training (General Psychiatry Residency, and Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior.

Dr. Phillips graduated from Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Medical School. She completed her psychiatry residency at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Phillips oversees residents’ research experiences and the research track. Her goal is to optimize and enrich research experiences for any resident interested in doing research during their training. This involves advising and mentoring residents on their projects and career development issues, helping residents identify strong research mentors in their area of interest, overseeing a research elective and a research seminar for interested residents, developing new research opportunities for trainees, and other activities.

During her career, Dr. Phillips has provided research mentoring to an estimated 70 beginning researchers, including residents, medical students, undergraduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior faculty. Dr. Phillips has a K24 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, which involves provision of research mentoring, and s he is a faculty member for Brown University’s post-doctoral training grant (T32) on treatment research, also funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Phillips additionally participates in research mentoring activities sponsored by the American Psychiatric Association and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. In 2002 and 2007, she received the Brown Department of Psychiatry’s Research Mentor Award.

Dr. Phillips is an internationally recognized researcher on body dysmorphic disorder and has also done research on obsessive compulsive disorder, other anxiety disorders, and personality disorders. She has been the principal investigator of many research grants, including grants funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. She has more than 250 publications and has given many invited presentations around the world. Dr. Phillips has received numerous honors and awards for her research and other contributions to psychiatry, including a Special Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association for her research accomplishments.

From 2002 to 2006, Dr. Phillips chaired the National Institute of Mental Health's Interventions Research Review Committee (Scientific Review Group). She is a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (and a member of the ACPN's Public Information Committee), the Editorial Board of American Psychiatric Publishing, and other editorial boards. Dr. Phillips is Chair of the DSM-5 Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum, Post-Traumatic, and Dissociative Disorders Workgroup, and a member of the DSM-5 Task Force. She is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of the Anxiety Disorders Association of America and the International OCD Foundation.

 

Diana Elliott Lidofsky, Ph.D

Director of Psychotherapy in Residency Training

 

After graduating from Harvard College, Dr. Lidofsky earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Adelphi University’s Institute for Advanced Psychological Studies. She went on to an internship and fellowship in Adult Clinical Psychology at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine before moving to Providence. Although initially psychoanalytically- oriented in her training, Dr. Lidofsky’s interest in many different schools of psychotherapy spans the spectrum from behavioral to psychodynamic treatments. Her academic interests focus on understanding the commonalities which characterize different psychotherapeutic modalities.

Dr. Lidofsky joined the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior almost twenty years ago, and during that time she has devoted herself to teaching residents about psychotherapy, and to supervising residents’ work in psychotherapy. Since assuming the position of Director of Psychotherapy Training, Dr. Lidofsky has been instrumental in further developing the psychotherapy curriculum, and in coordinating didactic and supervisory components of the program. She currently teaches the full-year seminar for residents at the PG-3 level on the theory and practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy, as well as a full-year seminar in case conference format for the PG-4 residents. Dr. Lidofsky’s commitment to teaching has been recognized by teaching awards from both the residents and from the Medical School.

In addition to her role in the Department, Dr. Lidofsky maintains a private practice in Providence, and serves on the board of the Rhode Island Association of Psychoanalytic Psychologies.

 

 

Roberta Swanson
Residency Coordinator

Roberta Swanson, Residency Coordinator, joined the Brown University Psychiatry Residency Program at Butler Hospital in September 2009. She brings six years as Program Coordinator for the Emergency Medicine Residency at Rhode Island Hospital. Prior to returning to residency life, Ms. Swanson was Postdoctoral Program and Data Manager for the Division of Biology and Medicine at Brown. She also worked at Brown for five years as a communications coordinator for a research center. Roberta has a B.A. in Communications/Public Relations from Rhode Island College, and more recently obtained a Certificate of Advanced Professional Studies in Public Management from Roger Williams University.

She can be reached via email at Roberta_Swanson@brown.edu or by calling her at 401-455-6375

 

Esther Escotto
Administrative Assistant

Esther Escotto joined the Psychiatry Residency Training Program at Butler Hospital in June 2000. A declared lifetime learner, she recently received BA in Secondary Education with certifications in secondary and middle school education from Providence College. Ms. Escotto brings with her over five years of office management experience to include psychiatric home care in Rhode Island. Ms. Escotto also has over ten years experience in the optical field as a District Manager, store manager, optician by trade, buyer, and staff trainer while in New York.

She can be reached at by emailing her at esther_escotto@brown.edu or by calling her at 401-455-6417