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INFORMATION FOR

About Us

Many individuals contribute to the success of our residency program. From the Department Chair, program directors and staff, site training directors, and faculty to our current residents and extensive network of alumni.

Chair's Welcome

Dear Applicant,

As a graduate of Yale Medical School and the Yale Psychiatry Residency, I believe the education mission of the department is critical to our goal of producing future leaders in psychiatry. Our training programs have already produced generations of leaders including two medical school deans, more than a dozen chairs of Departments of Psychiatry, and leading figures in research, clinical psychiatry, and the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. We provide outstanding resources to residents to pursue their academic interests. For example we rank second in the nation in research funding from the National Institutes of Health, are leaders in research supported by the Department of Veterans Affairs, and have multiple clinical and research training grants which provide funding for the education mission.

We have devoted a great deal of effort to make our large and diverse Department collegial, collaborative, and accessible. Yale Psychiatry has many “homes” including Yale New Haven Hospital (a private non-profit hospital), the Connecticut Mental Health Center (a component of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services), the VA Connecticut Healthcare System (a VA Medical Center), the Yale Department of Undergraduate Health (Yale Health Services), and the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center (a component of the Institute of Living of Hartford Hospital). Yet our research and education programs link all of these institutions and we function as a single entity.

Yale and New Haven are wonderful homes for our Department. Yale is one of the world’s great universities and we work closely with faculty throughout the University to take full advantage of this special educational environment. New Haven is also a jewel, with a moderate cost of living, great theater and wonderful restaurants.

As Chair of the Yale Department of Psychiatry, I invite you to learn more about our education mission. If you decide to interview at Yale, I’ll look forward to talking with you in person about the opportunities in our department.

Sincerely,

John Krystal, MD

Collaborative Excellence

The department is committed to recruiting, nurturing and launching the careers of future leaders and innovators in psychiatry. We invest considerable expertise, effort and resources to ensure that we provide a home for all residents to thrive - no matter their ability, age, ethnicity, gender, race, religion, and sexual orientation. We celebrate the individuality of our residents in our program and believe your learning will be enhanced by the opportunity to learn and dialogue across different perspectives. We are honored to have our deputy chair for collaborative excellence, Dr Ruby Lekwauwa, also serving as an associate residency program director.

International Medical Graduates

We welcome applications from international medical graduates who possess outstanding academic backgrounds. Yale University is a global university and we feel that part of our mission is to provide training to the best applicants from around the world.

A Welcoming Environment in which to Thrive

New Haven is a very diverse city with a large population of African Americans, Italian Americans, and Latinos and Latinas from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico and Puerto Rico. Our department has responded to this large Latino community by providing specialized services for mono-lingual Spanish speaking patients at the Clinica Hispana in the Connecticut Mental Health Center. Connecticut was one of the first states to legalize same sex marriage.

We prioritize the engagement and integration of our residents within the communities Greater New Haven. We have core programming that both brings community leaders into the classroom and residents into the community. The residency maintains relationships with a wide variety of local institutions and community organizations; and works closely with our deputy chair for community outreach and engagement, Dr Derrick Gordon.

Belonging and advocacy for all trainees

We have a number of ever-evolving structures in place focused on cultivating a sense of belonging for all trainees and delivering individualized learning and development plans. We encourage all residents to bring their authentic selves to their work. We acknowledge that everyone's experiences in particular communities may not be the same and hence have overlapping structures for building connections and having voices heard (e.g. the residency house system, sponsored of resident interest groups, the Psychiatry Residents' Association and residency distinction tracks). Further, we do not leave our residents' connections with mentorship to chance - this process begins with intentionality at day 1 and is fostered in multiple spaces and via a variety of structures.

Residency Program Directors

The Residency Program Directors have many roles including providing you with guidance about developing your career. The Program Directors also develop fair processes to assure that all stakeholders, including residents, faculty, institutions and our patients, have an opportunity to have input into decision making about the program.

Program Directors

  • John Cahill, MD, PhD

    Director

    Associate Professor of Psychiatry; Residency Program Director, Psychiatry; Deputy Medical Director, Connecticut Mental Health Center; Chief of Behavioral Health, Continuum of Care Inc., --

    Dr. Cahill serves as Residency Program Director for the Yale Department of Psychiatry. As Chief of Behavioral Health at Continuum of Care Inc. he helped build the first co-occurring disorders residential treatment center, community-engaged crisis response team (Elm City COMPASS) and crisis receiving center (REST) in Connecticut. He has been instrumental in the adaptation and promotion of the construct of 'deprescribing' in psychiatry: as a means to seek minimum-effective dosing of medications; to center the patient; to deepen a shared formulation; and to fully integrate psychodynamic and socio-cultural considerations. John is interested in emerging severe mental illness; continuous quality improvement via multi-stakeholder driven Learning Health Systems and translational research approaches. He co-created and directs the HONE (Healthcare Outcomes Network & Education) software consortium for first episode psychosis care, implemented in dozens of clinics nationally. He undertook medical school and PhD training in the UK and completed psychiatry residency and clinical research fellowships at Yale. He is board certified in Psychiatry, Addiction Medicine and Clinical Informatics.
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  • Miyun Kang, MD

    Associate Program Director

    Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

    Upon graduating from the Yale Psychiatry Residency program in 2005, Dr. Kang became an attending psychiatrist at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Clinic, where she continues to provide care to veterans. Her experience at the VA has also included years of working in residential programs and delivering telepsychiatry services to veterans outside of Connecticut. She is actively involved in the clinical supervision, didactic education and mentoring of Yale residents in a variety of settings at the VA. Her interest in psychiatric education has led to her collaboration in national and local efforts to coordinate virtual educational presentations for clinicians.
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  • Katherine Klingensmith, MD

    Associate Program Director

    Assistant Professor of Psychiatry

    Dr. Klingensmith attended University of Rochester SOM and completed psychiatry residency here at Yale. She is an adult psychiatrist and the Physician Lead for Ambulatory Services within the behavioral health service line for the Yale New Haven Hospital. Dr. Klingensmith provides clinical care within the Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Program at the YNHH Intensive Outpatient Program. As an Associate Program Director, Dr. Klingensmith’s work focuses on the support of our residency Clinical and Didactic Curricula.
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  • Ruby Lekwauwa, MD

    Associate Program Director

    Assistant Professor of Psychiatry; Associate Program Director for Collaborative Excellence and Resident Wellbeing and Engagement, Yale General Psychiatry Residency, Yale University Department of Psychiatry; Interim Deputy Chair for Collaborative Excellence, Yale University Department of Psychiatry

    Dr. Lekwauwa completed her adult psychiatry residency at Yale in 2015, followed by her child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the Yale Child Study Center in 2017. After training, she spent considerable time providing clinical care to children, teens, and their families in CT as well as leadership to clinical teams within a variety of settings. She is currently the medical director for the YNHH Adolescent Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) where she also manages and coordinates the one-month child and adolescent psychiatry ambulatory rotation in the PGY1 year. She has published in the areas of trauma and religion/spirituality and has specific clinical interests in culturally responsive engagement with marginalized and high-risk patient populations. She is actively involved in clinical supervision and mentoring of residents.
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  • Dale Sebastian, MBBS, MD, FAPA

    Associate Program Director

    Associate Professor of Psychiatry; Associate Program Director of Yale Public Psychiatry Fellowship, Yale Psychiatry; PGY-2 Didactic Training Director , Psychiatry; Psychiatry Pre-clerkship Director, Master Course Directors: Connection to the World

    Dale Sebastian, MBBS, MD earned his medical degree from St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences in Bangalore, India, and completed postgraduate training in Psychiatry at Yale University, where he also pursued fellowship training in Administrative and Community Psychiatry. His clinical and academic career has centered on the community mental health sector, with a focus on caring for individuals with chronic and severe mental illnesses in long-term inpatient settings. His areas of expertise include the treatment of psychotic and mood disorders, trauma, and personality disorders—often complicated by institutionalization, stigma, social isolation, legal challenges, and socioeconomic disparities.
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Residency Site Training Directors

Chief Residents

  • Jada Simone McMahon, MD

    Psychiatry Resident

    Jada McMahon is a current psychiatry intern at Yale. She was born in Coney Island, NY and attended undergraduate and medical school in upstate New York. She currently serves on the Psychiatry Residents' Association as the PGY-1 representative on the Graduate Medical Education Committee (GMEC) and the co-PGY-1 representative on the Graduate Educational Committee (GEC). Jada is passionate about criminal-legal system reform, reproductive justice, and other forms of legislative advocacy particularly as it pertains to BIPOC youth.

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  • Alyssa Nielsen

    Psychiatry Resident

    Alyssa Nielsen, MD is a psychiatry resident at Yale. She has served as co-president of the Psychiatry Residents' Association, a member of the Medical Student Education Committee, and co-leader of the Public Psychiatry Resident Interest Group. She is passionate about accessible psychiatric care, medical education, and exploring patients' and caregivers' perspectives of mental health care.

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Education Office Staff