2025 Department Accomplishments

• Brian Bayze, MD, Terry Platto, MD, and Brian Smith, MD, were recognized by their peers as Top Doctors in psychiatry.
• ​Noshene Ranjbar, MD, was recognized by her peers as a Top Doctor for her work in child & adolescent psychiatry. 

The Department of Psychiatry was honored for its Grand Rounds programming, which exhibits excellence in innovation, creativity, and the successful implementation of new ideas that enhance continuing medical education (CME), graduate medical education (GME), and other professional learning in Arizona. Read more about it in this UAHS article.

Jamie Manser, manager of program innovation and strategic initiatives, accepted the award on behalf of the department. She is pictured here with ArMA Accreditation & Medical Education Committee Chair (on the left) Shakaib Rehman, MD, and President-elect Arizona Medical Association Jason Jameson, MD, (on the right).

Kaley Canova-Gaitros, DO was honored for emboding APS values by providing compassionate patient care, supporting peers, demonstrating exemplary leadership, engaging in community service, advocating tirelessly for mental health, and achieving clinical excellence.

Katie Fellows, MD was recognized as an outstanding psychiatry resident exemplifying APA values, including compassion as evidenced by exemplary patient care, compassion to colleagues, leadership, community service, political advocacy and clinical excellence.

Scott Killgore, PhD, and the SCAN Lab received a first-place award for their poster – out of more than 600 entries – on using neuroimaging to disentangle the homeostatic from circadian effects of sleep deprivation on the brain at the Military Health System Research Symposium (MHSRS).

Noshene Ranjbar, MD, received this award at the COM-T faculty awards ceremony from the Office of Global and Border Health due to her tireless efforts in helping hundreds of asylum seekers escape trauma and stay in the U.S., as well as her work with Farsi-speaking patients with trauma. 

• Residency Program: Filled 12 available spots after reviewing 988 applications and interviewing 110 candidates.
• Addiction Medicine Program: Filled four available positions.
• Doctoral Clinical Psychology Program: Filled two available positions.
• Geriatric Psychiatry Program: Filled two available positions.

• Addiction Medicine Fellowship: Megan Burke, DO, Alaina Martinez, MD, Michael Sheehy, DO, and  Joe Shortall, DO , became board certified in addiction medicine.  
• Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship:  Adiel Carlo, MD, Michael Duerden, MD, Prabhjyot Singh, MD – all of whom graduated from our residency program – became board certified in geriatric psychiatry. 

• Our Department hosted 27 Grand Rounds this year, featuring a combination of national and local speakers, in both hybrid and online platforms.  
• To date, our Grand Rounds have had 2,000 total attendees, an average of 74 per presentation.  
• This is due to the quality of the topics, presenters, and extensive outreach.  

The Early Psychosis Intervention Center’s Program Lead Gustavo Perez, PhD, brought in Nev Jones, PhD, to collaborate on psychosis research. Dr. Jones is an associate professor and community-engaged mental health services researcher at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work.

• During her visit, Dr. Jones also gave a Grand Rounds on “Championing Early Intervention in Psychosis in Challenging Times.”

In December, the Department hosts the Wallace and Lucille K. Renard Professor & Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Eric Lenze, MD.

• Dr. Lenze will give two Grand Rounds on Dec. 3, one on perioperative mental health for the surgery departments and one for the Psychiatry Department on treatment-resistant depression.
• Dr. Lenze will also participate in group and individual meetings with:
  • Psychiatry residents
  • Attending physicians from various departments of surgery and divisions of medicine
  • Hospital leadership – in particular, medical officer leadership and ambulatory clinics leadership – to discuss and provide advice about models of depression prevention and care.

APAL continues to serve as a statewide thought leader in perinatal and pediatric mental health education with:

• 52 educational trainings delivered across Arizona in 2025.
• Ongoing curriculum development for residents, fellows, OB/GYNs, pediatricians, NPs, PAs, and behavioral health clinicians.
• Hosting monthly Grand Rounds, which have included national speakers from Harvard and leading experts in women’s mental health programs.
• Advancing statewide workforce training through on-demand Learning Management System content created for AZDHS as part of the Arizona State AIM bundle role out for hospitals and clinicians.

To increase interest in the field of geriatric psychiatry and meet the burgeoning demand for geriatric psychiatrists, leadership in the COM-T and COM-P Departments of Psychiatry and Banner Alzheimer's Institute collaborated to create “The University of Arizona and Banner Alzheimer’s Institute Scholarship” for the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry’s (AAGP) Scholars Program.

COM-T supporters include Psychiatry Professor and Chair Jordan Karp, MD; Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Director and Associate Professor of Psychiatry Marianne Klugheit, MD; Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship Associate Program Director and Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Matthew Erisman, MD; and Director of Banner Alzheimer’s Institute Tucson and Professor of Neurology Allan Anderson, MD. Julia Ghering, MD, of Prisma Health Midlands, won The University of Arizona and Banner Alzheimer’s Institute Scholarship.

In collaboration with the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (JCP) and renowned thought leaders in the field, Psychiatry Professor & Chair Jordan Karp, MD, instigated the creation of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry’s Difficult to Treat Depression clinical resource center.

This online collection – spawned from the Southwest Forum on Difficult to Treat Depression: Focus on Approach, Algorithms, and Access – shares cutting-edge research, videos, treatment strategies, and practical guidance from leading professionals in the field.

Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Dr. Balfour, joined the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s inaugural Scientific Advisory Council.

• The goal of the council is to advance hope through research and “brings together some of the nation’s most respected scientists, researchers, and clinical practitioners.”

Were all promoted to Associate Professor as of July 1, 2025.

Dr. Karp as elected to the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP) board in a leadership role as the secretary/treasurer position for the 2025-2027 term.

Dr. Suhr became the Program Director for the Department's Doctoral Clinical Psychology Internship Program.

Dr. Swanson, after graduating from our residency program in 2024, joined the Department as an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and as an Assistant Program Director for the Residency Program.

Dr. Grandner came in at number one on the ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholars list in sleep and sleep medicine. This list showcases the most productive authors from the last five years whose publications “are of profound impact (citations) and of utmost quality (h-index)."

He was elected to the Sleep Researchers Society’s 2025-2026 Board of Directors as the Director-at-Large.

Dr. Gradner also joined the Google Health Advisory Panel in July. This group of 12 international experts across all areas of health and technology was created to advise Google in elevating their health-related offerings (such as Fitbit, Pixel Watch, and AI platforms) to improve health and well-being. 

Dr. Hartstein was selected to participate in the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigators Research Forum. The research training program is designed to aid the career development of promising early career investigators in circadian and sleep research. 

Were selected for the 2025-2026 Spurring Success for Women in Medicine and Science Fellowship. 

Received a $3.8M grant for its five-year Mind After Midnight study from the National Institute of Mental Health, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to examine how being awake in the middle of the night could impact a person’s ability to make decisions. 

Received a $1.9M HRSA grant for five years to support the education of Fellows and their work with Banner clinics, including the Whole Health Clinic.

Received continued funding from HRSA, awarded to the College of Nursing. The program is guided by a model of collaborative, team-based mental health care.

After receiving a stop work order due to its SAMHSA Mental Health Block Grant COVID funding being pulled, APAL successfully raised $108,000 in emergency support for the Perinatal Psychiatry Access Line and $80,000 for the Pediatric Line, restructured two existing grants, and submitted several new proposals to preserve the critical lifelines for providers across Arizona. APAL is now funded through September 2026.

Dr. Hartstein received a $172,085 K01 grant  from the Department of Health and Human services for her study “Translational Light-Based Intervention Strategies for Improving Sleep and Circadian Health in Early Childhood.”

Dr. Ranjbar received $30,000 from the Weil Foundation to support the development of National Training Curriculum in Integrative Psychiatry, which includes a five-lecture series on fundamentals of integrative psychiatry. These lectures will be made available to residency programs as well as psychiatrists nationally and internationally.

Psychiatry participated in the UA’s Giving Day for the first time this year, and the crowd funding effort enabled us to create a Trainee Travel Grants fund. We raised $3,500 to support our psychiatry residents, fellows, and psychology interns and their travel to rural areas to care for underserved patients and to conferences for additional educational opportunities and professional development. This effort was a collaboration led by Jamie Manser, MLSt, the department’s manager of program innovation and strategic initiatives, and COM-T’s Development Director Stephanie Mills.

• APAL is an active member of the Arizona Rural Maternal Mental Health Advisory Committee. 
• Presented at and engaged with the Tribal Opioid and Substance Use Conference, Arizona chapter of American College of Physicians, Arizona Center of Rural Health (16 conferences in 2025).
• Participated in community health fairs, hospital partner meetings, and provider outreach events (14 community events to date).
• Continues close collaboration with AZDHS, AHCCCS, PSI, AzAAP, and health system partners to improve access and referral pathways.

• Year to date call volumes
  • Perinatal: 224
  • Pediatrics: 135
  • Resource Line: 133

• The June 8 event featured special selections of a PBS documentary on psychosis by renowned filmmaker Ken Burns and a panel discussion – moderated by Gustavo Perez, PhD, EPICenter's director and lead psychologist – with an EPICenter psychologist, two community members living with psychosis, and a family member, and who shared their experiences and personal stories of struggle, healing, and hope during the audience Q&A.
• This event was partially funded by a Downtown Tucson Partnership Downtown for Everyone Grant, which supports events presented in Downtown Tucson that demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and reach underserved communities. Jamie Manser, MLSt, applied for and received the grant on behalf of the Department and the Early Psychosis Intervention Center to produce this event at The Screening Room.
• The free event filled the theatre to capacity (110 attendees) and was a collaboration with the Coyote Task Force, a Tucson organization that supports community members living with serious mental illness.

• Banner’s WHC provides medical and behavioral health services with a fully integrated behavioral health and primary care team in one location.
• On Nov. 18, the WHC celebrated its 10-year anniversary with a special event honoring its team members’ decade of community healthcare and healing.

• The event included collaborative group activities, WHC founders sharing the background of creating the clinic, WHC members sharing their healing experiences with WHC support, along with music and refreshments!

• People in the photos include founders: Patricia Harrison-Monroe, Tamsen Bassford; and initial and long-term staff: Mary Ojeda, Yvette Palma, Rebekah Godinez, Roni Garcia, Lori Wellman; and current staff: Benjamin Fay, Josiah Osego, Gustavo Perez, Toby Sanchez, Dalya Sarkees, Phillip Stensrud, Drew Thomas, Susan Thomas, Soni Tiounoff; and Banner Health Leadership: Alison Flynn Gaffney, Tawnya Tretschok, Krista Baker.

The WHC was able to re-open its community closet post-COVID for its members who are in need. It had been closed during the pandemic due to concerns about infection. However, Peer Support Assistant Darlene “Dee” Gonzales appealed to Banner’s CEO Alison Flynn Gaffney to re-open the WHC Clothing Closet.

The following is an excerpt from Alison Flynn Gaffney’s Feb. 27 leadership update email: “One of the wins I would like to call out is the return of the Clothing Closet at the BUMG – T Whole Health Clinic. While I was there, I met Peer Support Assistant Darlene “Dee” Gonzales, who shared with me her personal experience of homelessness as she was advocating to reopen the Clothing Closet. The Closet had closed at the onset of the COVID pandemic due to concerns about infection. It collects donated clothing items and other essentials and makes them available to clinic patients with financial challenges, who are interviewing for a job, are unhoused, suffer from addiction or have psychosocial or other needs. Dee said, ‘I know how it feels to be handed a new pair of clean socks, a blouse, or a backpack I can put my entire life's items in. When you are familiar with loss, you know that it's a big deal to meet that loss with empathy and compassion.’
 
Dee had a compelling case, and I am pleased to share that Infection Prevention has cleared the Clothing Closet to reopen and once again serve clients in need. Thank you, Dee!”

WHC Recovery Coordinator Drew Thomas, who served as the Banner Barrier Breakers team captain for NAMIWalks on April 5 (the annual NAMI of Southern Arizona fundraiser) led the Banner Barrier Breakers team to a first-place win in the organization/business category. Under Drew’s leadership, the team raised $2,853 - superseding the original $2,300 goal.