Program Leadership and Faculty

Steven Chan (@StevenChanMD, StevenChanMD.com ), is a clinical informaticist and addiction physician at Palo Alto VA Health, affiliated with Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Chan is co-investigator on clinical research — at UC Davis, funded by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services; and at UCSF, funded by the Stanford-UCSF Center for Excellence in Regulatory Sciences — in areas of telehealth and digital health. Dr. Chan is a sought-after national speaker whose ideas, thoughts, and research have been featured at Fortune 50 companies such as Google; publications such as JAMA, Telemedicine and e-Health, JMIR (Journal of Medical Internet Research), U.S. News & World Report, and Wired; and on media outlets including the Washington Post, Wired, PBS and NPR Ideastream. Dr. Chan served as Vice Chair for the Workgroup on Mental Health & Psychiatric Apps at the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and serves on the Committees on Innovation, Telepsychiatry, and Mental Health Information Technology. Dr. Chan additionally serves as Founder & CEO of MentalPowerHacks.com, media education for life hacks for performance, productivity & success. Dr. Chan draws from his extensive medical, business, and informatics training at California’s leading institutes — UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Davis, as well as UCLA, UC San Francisco and Stanford University

Dr. Anusha Chandrakanthan is a clinical instructor in psychiatry. She is a family practice physician who is board certified in Addiction Medicine. Previously, she was the medical director for a company that provided substance use treatment using telemedicine. Presently, she works with the Valley Homeless Healthcare Program at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center providing services to a marginalized population. She also continues to teach at the Stanford Addiction Medicine fellowship.

Dr. Huiqiong Deng is a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry. In addition to a medical degree, she earned a PhD, with a major in rehabilitation science and a minor in neuroscience. Specializing in the treatment of alcohol/substance addiction, interventional and cultural psychiatry, her goal is to help each patient along the journey to achieve optimal health and quality of life. As the co-author of more than a dozen scholarly articles, Dr. Deng’s work has appeared in Psychiatry Research, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, American Journal on Addictions, Brain Stimulation, and other publications. Dr. Deng has won numerous honors and awards such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse Young Investigator Travel Award, the Ruth Fox Scholarship from the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and College on the Problems of Drug Dependence Travel Award for Early Career Investigators. In addition, she was selected to attend the Annual American Psychiatry Association Research Colloquium for Junior Investigators. Since she joined faculty at Stanford, Dr. Deng has received research grant support by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Innovator Grant Program.

Jayme Frihart, ASW, is Clinical Social Worker in the Stanford Outpatient Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. Her role is focused on helping patients and their loved ones connect to the community resources that allow patients to build and sustain long term remission from substance use and improve their quality of mental health. She has worked with dual diagnosis populations since 2015 when she began working with Caminar in their residential homes. From there she worked for San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing in crisis management. 

Dr. T. Kyle Harrison is a Clinical Professor (Affiliated- PAVA) of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University and a staff physician at the VA Palo Alto. He earned his MD and did his residency training in anesthesiology at Stanford University. He completed a medical education and simulation fellowship at Stanford and then obtained additional training in addiction medicine at both Stanford and the VA Palo Alto. He is interested in the intersection of pain and addiction. He attends on both the acute pain service as well as the addiction medicine clinic at the VA Palo Alto. His academic interest include addiction, pain, peri operative management of buprenorphine, conversion of acute to chronic pain, and medical simulation. His email is kyle.harrison@stanford.edu and his twitter handle is @KyleHarrisonMD.

Nancy A. Haug, Ph.D. is Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor and Addiction Medicine Fellowship Program Faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine. She currently leads didactics and a journal club for Addiction Medicine fellows, and teaches a postdoctoral seminar on ethics and legal issues for the Clinical Psychology Fellowship Program. Dr. Haug is also Professor of Psychology at Palo Alto University where she teaches, advises and supervises doctoral students, and leads the Harm Reduction and Addiction Treatment Research Laboratory. Dr. Haug previously served as faculty and attending psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco, and taught in the University of California, Berkeley Alcohol & Drug Studies program. Dr. Haug was funded by SAMHSA for a practitioner-education initiative to expand training for evidence-based addiction treatment. She is Member-at-Large for Practice in the Society of Addiction Psychology (American Psychological Association, Division 50). Dr. Haug is on the editorial board of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs and the Journal of Addictive Diseases. Throughout her academic career, Dr. Haug has focused on behavioral and psychosocial interventions for treating addiction, and currently has projects studying mindfulness group treatment for addiction, cannabis vaping practices, and online interventions for alcohol harm reduction. Dr. Haug has been licensed in CA since 2004 and has a private practice that informs her research and teaching.

Dr. Anna Lembke received her undergraduate degree in Humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. She is currently Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. She is a diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and a diplomate of the American Board of Addiction Medicine. Dr. Lembke was one of the first in the medical community to sound the alarm regarding opioid overprescribing and the opioid epidemic. In 2016, she published her best-selling book on the prescription drug epidemic, "Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016). Her book was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic (Zuger, 2018). "Drug Dealer, MD" combines case studies with public policy, cultural anthropology, and neuroscience, to explore the complex relationship between doctors and patients around prescribing controlled drugs. It has had an impact on policy makers and legislators across the nation. Dr. Lembke has testified before Congress and consulted with governors and senators from Kentucky to Missouri to Nevada. She has been a featured guest on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, MSNBC with Chris Hayes, and numerous other media broadcasts. Using her public platform and her faculty position at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Lembke has developed multiple teaching programs on addiction and safe prescribing, as well as opioid tapering. She has held multiple leadership and mentorship positions and received the Stanford’s Chairman’s Award for Clinical Innovation, and the Stanford Departmental Award for Outstanding Teaching. Dr. Lembke continues to educate policymakers and the public about causes of and solutions for the problem of addiction. Her latest book, "Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence" (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021), was an instant New York Times and Los Angeles Times bestseller, and explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.

Alan K. Louie, M.D. is Professor, Associate Chair, and Director of Education in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His current focus is on (1) educational innovations in medical school, residency, and fellowships; (2) “Reimagining Mental Healthcare,” a special initiative focusing on digital technology, design thinking, and implementation science; and (3) the development of transdisciplinary collaborations and programs in psychiatry and behavioral health. With regards to the latter, he is seeking to establish a continuum of behavioral health education (across high school, college, medical school, residency, neuroscience training, continuing medical education, and public education and advocacy), through his teaching at Stanford University and deputy editorship of Academic Psychiatry, an international journal devoted to behavioral health education, career development, and leadership. His advocacy work aims to decrease stigma and discrimination against people suffering from mental illness, in diverse cultures and special populations. He has conducted research in basic neuroscience, clinical psychiatry, and medical education and this breadth of experiences has enabled him to mentor learners with a wide range of interests within psychiatry. His publications have included investigation of the molecular mechanisms of opiate tolerance in the brain and neuroscience, behavioral pharmacology, alcoholism and drug abuse, anxiety and affective disorders, clinical psychopharmacology, and medical education. Among his awards are an individual National Research Service Award and a Physician Scientist Award (career development award) both from the National Institute of Mental Health. Of note, in medical education, Dr. Louie was awarded the Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and from the American Psychiatry Association the Nancy Roeske Certificate of Excellence in Medical Student Education, the Irma Bland Award for excellence in Teaching Residents, and the Vestermark Psychiatry Educator Award. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College and his medical degree from Harvard Medical School, he pursued an internship in internal medicine at Stanford University Hospital, a psychiatric residency at the University of Chicago, and a fellowship in Neuropsychopharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Dr. Louie subsequently had a distinguished career at UCSF over almost thirty years, including responsibilities as a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Anxiety and Affective Disorders Consultation Program, Acting Associate Director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry, Co-Director of the Pre-Clerkship Psychiatry Curriculum, and Co-Director of the Brain, Mind, and Behavior course in the UCSF Essential Core Curriculum. Additionally, he has been the Training Director of the Psychiatry Residency of San Mateo County, co-designer of the San Mateo County – Stanford Community Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship, and Chair of Continuing Medical Education for San Mateo County Behavioral Health and Recovery Services. Dr. Louie moved to Stanford University in 2012 and publications list below are since he joined Stanford.

Dr. Ostacher is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is the Site Director for the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, where he also serves as the Medical Director of the Pharmacology of Addiction Recovery Clinic, the Director of the Bipolar and Depression Research Program and the Director of Advanced Fellowship Training in Mental Illness Research and Treatment for MDs for the VISN 21 MIRECC, and the Site Director at the VA Palo Alto for Advanced Fellowship Training for Stanford. A graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, the Harvard School of Public Health, and Harvard Medical School, he completed his training at The Cambridge Health Alliance at Harvard Medical School in Adult Psychiatry, Public Psychiatry, and Geriatric Psychiatry, and is currently board certified in Psychiatry, Addiction Psychiatry, and Addiction Medicine. He is the Digital Content Editor for the journal Evidence-Based Mental Health and is on the editorial boards of Bipolar Disorders, the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, Current Psychiatry, and Psychiatric Annals. His current research includes roles as Site Investigator for VA-BRAVE, multicenter, randomized trial comparing long-acting injectable buprenorphine to sublingual buprenorphine/naloxone, and as a Co-investigator for PRIME-VA, a 21-site study of pharmacogenomics in the treatment of major depressive disorder. With funding from NIDA, he studies, along with Jaimee Heffner, Ph.D. at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, smoking cessation in people with bipolar disorder using a novel online psychotherapy derived from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. His primary research interest is in large clinical trials mental health and addiction, and the implementation of evidence-based mental health practices.

Dr. Amer Raheemullah, MD, is Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford University in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department. He specializes in the treatment of addiction, has published chapters and peer-reviewed articles in this area, and is Director of the Addiction Medicine Consult Service at Stanford Hospital. He is board-certified in Addiction Medicine and Internal Medicine and has a special interest in developing novel methods to increase access to addiction treatment, through criminal justice, healthcare, and tech-enabled solutions. He was born and raised in the Chicagoland area. He started free addiction and education programs in Illinois jails and prisons during his undergraduate degree in Economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which continued through his Internal Medicine residency at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, and eventually started MadinaHouse, a non-profit organization focusing on increasing access to addiction treatment for underserved populations. After completing his Addiction Medicine fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine, he stayed on the faculty and started the Stanford Hospital Addiction Medicine Consult Service. The service consists of addiction medicine specialists, social workers, substance use navigators, and peer mentors, and by the first year, 30-day readmission rates were reduced by 60% in substance use disorder patients treated by the service, without any increase in length of stay. He also works with the Silicon Valley digital technology startup, Lucid Lane, to put forth a nationwide response to the opioid epidemic, by leveraging data-driven, tech-enabled solutions to scale access to evidence-based treatment.

Dr.Sahlem is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is board-certified in general psychiatry and addictions medicine, as well as fellowship-trained in the research and clinical application of neuromodulation-based treatments including repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), and vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). He additionally has advanced training in the treatment of mood and sleep disorders. In addition to being an active clinician, Dr.Sahlem is a member of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab and directs the Addictions Research Section of the Lab. Major areas of study for Dr.Sahlem include: The development of rTMS as a focused treatment for addictive disorders; the development of a novel form of ECT theorized to have reduced cognitive side effects, Focal Electrically Administered Seizure Therapy (FEAST), and; the further development of rTMS for the treatment of mood disorders.

Dr. Rachel Sussman grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania and Chicago, and completed college at Yale, a master's degree in psychology at Harvard, and her medical degree at Stanford. She worked and studied for several years in Belgium and China. As a former middle and high school science teacher, she has a strong interest in education and the importance of good communication with patients. She has particular interests in women's health, pediatrics, lactation, and nutrition for the whole family. Her interest in psychology also guided her towards a fellowship at Stanford and expertise in addiction and chemical dependency. Dr. Sussman enjoys biking everywhere she can with her three kids, going to the farmer's market on the weekends, reading, and yoga.

Sheila Thares-Callaway, R.N. M.S., M.H.P.N.P., received her Master’s Degree in Science from U.C. S.F. with training in Internal Medicine with a specialty as a Mental Health Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner. Her advanced practice education is built upon an extensive experience as a registered nurse in intensive care. She was the manager at both O’Connor hospital Pain Clinic as well as The Chemical Dependency Recovery Center. Her career includes a volunteer position as WE CARE President, a nurse recovery support group. While Director of Renascence Women’s recovery homes in San Jose and Campbell, she assisted in establishing the residential licensing and certification. She is currently a clinician in addiction medicine and psychiatry. In private practice for over 15 years, supervised by Dr. Jerry Callaway in a small group practice. At Santa Clara Kaiser, Addiction Medicine Recovery Service department she an integral member of a large interdisciplinary team with supervision by Dr. Daniel Saal. She is a member of the American Psychiatric Nurse Association and holds certification with the American Nurses Credentialing Center. She is co-author of a patient handout with Steve Grinstead, Phd., of “Addiction Free Pain Management.” At Kaiser, the scope of her clinical practice includes hospital rounds and assisting with training residents and fellows in addiction medicine from Stanford. She provides physical exams, evaluation, and management of psychiatric illnesses (in private practice). A founding member of the MTD (Multidisciplinary Team) which meets weekly consult to help the Primary Care Physician and Psychiatrists with patients who have complex multi-diagnoses. She is also a member of the Kaiser Linkage Research project which links patients in recovery with a Primary Care Physician. Ms. Thares utilizes multiple modalities in providing counseling and patient education.