ALMA Clinic

As co-founder and co-director of ALMA Clinic, Dr. Nataly Beck is a psychiatrist who is passionate about providing compassionate, evidence-based, culturally sensitive, and language-concordant care to patients, especially including those from the Hispanic or Latin-American community. Originally from Lima, Peru, she immigrated to the US with her family at a young age. After attending the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, she attended Yale School of Medicine and then completed her psychiatry residency at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. As a Clinical Assistant Professor at Stanford, she co-founded ALMA Clinic (formerly known as La Clínica Latina) in 2021 and has been inspired to see the impact that the clinic has had on many Hispanic and Latin-American patients. Dr. Beck is honored to have the opportunity to co-lead the team of providers, graduate and undergraduate students, and others at Stanford Medicine that have the united goal of providing excellent care to patients as well as to advance mental health care in the Hispanic and Latin-American community.


Como cofundadora y codirectora de la Clínica ALMA, la Dra. Nataly Beck es una psiquiatra apasionada por brindar atención compasiva, basada en la evidencia, culturalmente sensible y en el idioma del paciente, especialmente a aquellos de la comunidad hispana o latinoamericana. Originaria de Lima, Perú, emigró a Estados Unidos con su familia a una edad temprana. Tras estudiar en la Universidad de Tennessee-Knoxville, cursó sus estudios de medicina en la Facultad de Medicina de Yale y completó su residencia en psiquiatría en el Centro Médico de la Universidad de Vanderbilt. Como profesora clínica adjunta en Stanford, cofundó la Clínica ALMA (anteriormente conocida como La Clínica Latina) en 2021 y se siente inspirada al ver el impacto que la clínica ha tenido en muchos pacientes hispanos y latinoamericanos. La Dra. Beck se siente honrada de tener la oportunidad de codirigir el equipo de profesionales, estudiantes de posgrado y pregrado, y demás personal de Stanford Medicine, quienes comparten el objetivo de brindar una atención excelente a los pacientes y de promover la salud mental en la comunidad hispana y latinoamericana.

Dr. Axel Valle is a licensed clinical psychologist providing individual psychotherapy in English and Spanish. He specializes in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety disorders, with additional expertise in working with high-performance athletes.

Dr. Valle brings a distinctive international clinical background to his practice. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from The Wright Institute in Berkeley. He also holds a Master’s degree in crisis and trauma from Tel Aviv University and is a licensed clinical psychologist in Mexico City, his place of origin.

Dr. Altamirano is a Clinical Psychologist at Stanford University’s INSPIRE Training Program, specializing in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis (CBTp). She works in both outpatient and inpatient settings, with primary clinical appointments at the INSPIRE Clinic, which focuses on early psychosis, and ALMA Clinic, which serves Spanish-speaking individuals of Latin American background experiencing anxiety and mood disorders. As a native Spanish speaker, Dr. Altamirano blends her expertise in psychotic-spectrum disorders with an understanding of the cultural influences shaping Latinx/a/o clinical presentations.

Dr. Altamirano's main research and clinical interests center on cultural adaptations to psychosocial treatments for psychotic-spectrum disorders. As part of the EPI-CAL initiative, she serves as a CBTp trainer for community clinicians and provides ongoing consultation, contributing to the development of a network of early psychosis programs across California. Through Stanford’s INSPIRE Training Program, she also delivers CBTp training and consultation that extends beyond California.

Dr. Altamirano is a dedicated educator and mentor. She co-teaches the undergraduate course "Destigmatizing Psychosis: I Thought I Heard My Name," and is working to expand this course into community and graduate student settings. She serves as an academic mentor and postdoctoral supervisor within the Stanford Clinical Psychology Fellowship program, and advises graduate students in the PGSP-Stanford PsyD Consortium.

She additionally serves as the Chair of the Psychosis and Schizophrenia Spectrum Special Interest Group (PASS SIG) at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) and as the co-chair of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team at the North America CBTp Network. Reflecting her commitment to educational equity, Dr. Altamirano is also a Board member of the South County California Student Opportunity and Access Program (Cal-SOAP), where she supports efforts to promote higher education opportunities for underserved students—a mission informed by her own experience navigating the K-12 to higher education pipeline as a Cal-SOAP alumna. Her dedication to expanding access extends internationally: she co-taught a version of the "Destigmatizing Psychosis" course in Mexico, mentors visiting international research interns, and is actively working to develop CBTp training in Mexico, reflecting her commitment to expanding culturally responsive, evidence-based mental health care across borders. Students and colleagues interested in these efforts are encouraged to reach out.

Dr. Sam Saenz was born in the Bay Area and received his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Stanford University. He completed his medical degree at UC Irvine’s Program in Medical Education for the Latino Community, and he also obtained a Master’s in Public Health from UC Berkeley. After serving as chief psychiatry resident during his psychiatry residency at Stanford, he completed a fellowship in public psychiatry at UC San Francisco. His professional interests include fostering the next generation of diverse mental health providers and community advocacy.

Senior Community Psychiatrist, Wellness Equity Alliance, Medical Director, Project ECHO and Telemedicine for Severe Mental Illness Track to support the Mental Health of SGBV survivors in Democratic Republic of Congo project. Past Associate Medical Director at Casa del Sol, specialty mental health clinic of La Clinica de la Raza in Oakland California from 2013 to July 2021. Previously at Kaiser Permanente, Northern California, from 2000 to 2013, and Contra Costa County Older Adults Clinics from 1995-2000. Graduate of McGill University Faculty of Medicine, Montreal, Canada, and Boston University Psychiatry Residency. Interests include global health, community mental health, Latinx and underserved populations, women's health, and elder care.

Sarah was born and raised in Brazil where she attended law school before moving to the United States and shifting her interest to Neuroscience. She completed majors in Biology and Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2020. At VCU, Sarah was part of the NIH-IMSD program and worked on uncovering mechanisms of axonal pathology in the lab of Dr. Jeff Dupree. She also worked with a clinical sample to identify the effects of income insecurity on decision-making in people with cocaine use disorder (CUD), in the lab of Dr. James Bjork. After graduating, Sarah went to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a UGSP Research Fellow and characterized a progranulin knockout mouse model in the lab of Dr. Alan Koretsky. She returned to her clinical research work in her second year at NIH in the lab of Dr. Vijay Ramchandani, where she worked to understand the relationship between neurological domains underlying Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). At Stanford, Sarah is interested in treating and managing neuropsychiatric disorders and increasing access to participation in clinical research studies. Sarah is a RAISE fellow, a NIDA START Fellow, and an intern project manager for the Recovery Incentives Program.

Margarita is an MD student born in Colombia and raised in Miami, FL. While formerly undocumented and unstably housed, she personally experienced the downstream effects of a broken healthcare system, motivating her to pursue an MPH at Northwestern and to work on diversity initiatives at Stanford. Nowadays, Margarita is interested in reproductive psychiatry and integrated behavioral health, and aspires to address the health inequities which most deeply affect minorities in the United States.