Pitt Psychiatry Faculty Members & Residents Recognized at 2025 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Annual Meeting
The annual meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), held in October 2025 highlighted and honored the innovative clinical and research achievements of Pitt Psychiatry faculty and trainees.
Clinical Perspectives
In a Clinical Perspectives session, “The Music I Want to Hear: A Journey Through Research,” David Brent, MD (Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, Clinical and Translational Science, Epidemiology, and Pediatrics), discussed how encounters with loved ones, mentors, patients, and mentees shaped his journey as an academic child and adolescent psychiatrist, clinician, researcher, and mentor.
Distinguished Fellows
Abigail Schlesinger, MD (Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics), and Rameshwari Tumuluru, MD (Professor of Psychiatry), were honored as new AACAP Distinguished Fellows during the opening plenary’s medal ceremony.
Dr. Schlesinger is a champion for integrated psychiatric care and currently serves as the UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) and UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital clinical chief of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and Integrated Care; clinical director of the CHP Behavioral Science Division & Community Based Services; and medical director of the Children’s Telephonic Psychiatric Services (TiPS), a service that Dr. Schlesinger created for primary care physicians to access expert psychiatric consultations by phone.
Dr. Tumuluru was instrumental in developing UPMC Western Psychiatric Hospital’s adolescent Acute Partial Hospitalization Program (APHP), the region’s first hospital diversion initiative for adolescents with a range of psychiatric diagnoses. She currently serves as medical director of both the APHP and the Afterschool Intensive Outpatient Program (AIOP). Under Dr. Tumuluru’s oversight, the AIOP provides a wide range of individualized, intensive therapeutic socialization and skills development opportunities, as well as individual and family interventions.
New Research Poster Award
Kalyan Tripathy, MD, PhD (PGY3), was included as a New Research Poster Awardee for his poster entitled “Anhedonia Improvement with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation to Reward Circuitry in Youth Depression Is Associated with Pretreatment Reward Circuit Function and Symptom Profile.”
Educational Outreach Program
Alexis McCathern, MD (PGY5 child & adolescent psychiatry fellow), was selected as a recipient of the AACAP Educational Outreach Program for child and adolescent psychiatry residents.
Congratulations to all!