Professional Staff
Erica Foulks, LPC
Education & Career Services
Erica Foulks, LPC, earned her Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology from Illinois School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. For the past six years she has worked in inpatient, residential, and outpatient settings, and has experience with the adult, young adult and adolescent population. Ms. Foulks has a background in a variety of clinical settings including the Eating Disorder Center at Roger’s Memorial Hospital, where she worked prior to starting graduate school. In her role within Education and Career Services, Ms. Foulks promotes the integration of ambition and competence into the life planning process within Yellowbrick’s treatment process.
<<back to Professional Staff
Colleen Kula, LPC
Clinical Services Coordinator/Community Relations
Colleen Kula earned her Master’s degree in clinical psychology from Illinois School of Professional Psychology at Argosy University. Most recently, Ms. Kula worked extensively with families to advocate for their treatment needs through-out the admissions process in a residential treatment setting. Additionally, she worked with professionals to ensure their understanding of the program philosophy, treatment options, and availability of services. Ms. Kula also worked as a direct care counselor where she co-facilitated therapy groups on topics of self-esteem, body image, 12-step recovery, CBT, and DBT. Prior to her time working in a residential treatment setting, Ms. Kula spent one year of clinical training conducting individual therapy sessions to teenagers living in foster care.
Additionally, Ms. Kula has over seven years of customer service experience which adds to her ability to respond quickly and efficiently to the needs of others. Two of her favorite recreational activities are traveling with family and friends and participating in triathlons.
<<back to Professional Staff
Paule Verdier MOT, OTR/L
Occupational/Life Skills Therapist
Ms. Verdier earned her Master's Degree in Occupational Therapy from Governors State University in 2007.
Her education has prepared her for 'client-centered practice,' focusing on working alongside patients and utilizing their expertise of themselves in order to achieve competence. Ms. Verdier has experience working with both adolescents and adults and is proficient in American Sign Language.
Ms. Verdier is currently the treasurer for the Gamma Kappa Chapter of Pi Theta Epsilon, a national honor society for occupational therapists.
<<back to Professional Staff
Betty Wolff, MA, ATR
Creative Arts Coordinator
Betty Wolff, ATR, earned her Master’s degree in art therapy from University of Illinois, Chicago. For the past fourteen years she has worked at Rush North Shore Medical Center with the inpatient, outpatient, and medical populations. Ms. Wolff has also worked with Dr. Viner for the last thirteen years at University Behavioral Health where she focused on eating disorders. She is an exhibiting painter and maintains a studio at the North Branch Gallery in Skokie. Ms. Wolff has played an active role on the art committee of the organization of Independent Merchants of Downtown Skokie, where she worked to revitalize the downtown with art. Her philosophy is to use art as an impetus for change and a mode of connection to the community. It is her hope that the young adult working with multi-media resources will find a stronger sense of self and increased self-esteem.
<<back to Professional Staff
Ilene Wynn, RD, LDN
Registered Dietician
Coordinator, Eating Disorder Services
Ilene Wynn, RD, LDN, earned a Bachelors of Science degree with honors in Nutrition and Medical Dietetics from the University of Illinois at Chicago – Health Sciences Center in 1983. She has worked primarily in outpatient treatment settings including Lake Forest Hospital, Health and Fitness Centers of Lake Forest Hospital and private practice for the past 23 years.
Ms. Wynn’s areas of expertise focus upon preventive Nutrition and Wellness, Disordered Eating, Weight Management and Sports Nutrition. Her philosophy emphasizes provision of nutrition care and intervention to facilitate behavioral and lifestyle changes. She has developed and implemented numerous nutrition education programs and materials for the community and corporate settings. She has extensive experience in nutrition consultation and treatment of individuals with Eating Disorders, having worked with University Behavioral Health since 1994.
Ms. Wynn is the mother of one emerging adult daughter and one teenage daughter.
<<back to Professional Staff
Administration
Carrielynne Handcox, CBCS, CMAA, CMT, CCA
Administrator
Carrielynne Handcox brings her soulful spirit, excellent technical knowledge and communication skills, as well as in-depth organizational abilities to the leadership group at Yellowbrick.
Ms. Handcox is an NHA/AHIMA Certified Billing and Coding Associate and Medical Administrative Assistant. She formerly was the Senior Health Services Instructor at Techskills Institute. She continues as a teaching consultant at Techskills Institute, conducting classes in Health Care Administration. She formerly served as Director of Career Services at Techskills, assisting health care administration students in making career decisions and job placement while providing class instruction.
Ms. Handcox is the mother of one adult son, an emerging adult daughter and an emerging adult son. She has two incredible newly emerged grandchildren.
<<back to Administration
Board of Advisors
Ian Aitken
CEO, The Menninger Clinic
Ian Aitken serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of The Menninger Clinic in Houston, Texas. He is responsibility for overall leadership of The Clinic, including operational functions and implementation of the strategic plan. Previously, Mr. Aitken oversaw The Clinic's administrative, operational, marketing and network functions. He has served on The Clinic's management team since joining Menninger in 1996.
Mr. Aitken has worked in behavioral healthcare throughout his career. Prior to joining Menninger, he served as Vice President for health system development at Rock Creek Center, in the southwest Chicago suburb of Lemont, Illinois. He directed development of outpatient programs, physician recruitment and managed care contracting in a seven-state area. He also served as Vice President and CEO of Four Winds-Chicago Hospital at Lemont, a 60-bed proprietary behavioral health hospital with outpatient and off-site programs.
For 16 years, he held a number of administrative and program director positions in the Illinois Department of Mental Health and Disabilities. During this tenure, Mr. Aitken gained expertise in management and development of acute and extended care programs. While working in the public sector, Mr. Aitken also presented at state and national mental health conferences and was published in the Journal of Health and Human Resource Administration.
He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University.
<<back to Board of Advisors
David Dranove, PhD
Walter McNerney Distinguished Professor of Health Industry Management and Strategy, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management
Dr. Dranove has been a Professor for more than 15 years with Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, which maintains one of the country's leading business and healthcare management programs. He is the Walter McNerny Distinguished Professor of Healthcare Management and Strategy and was also the Richard Paget Distinguished Professor of Management and Strategy and Professor of Health Services Management. Dr. Dranove maintains a high public profile as a leading health economist and is influential in the application of economics to solve complex legal and health care policy problems. He assists the firm's clients in all areas of health care policy issues related to economics. Dr. Dranove has advised top officials of the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission on health care issues and has published several articles on health care reform.
Dr. Dranove received his Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree in Business Administration from Cornell University and his PhD in Business Economics and Policy from Stanford University.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Prudence Gourguechon, MD
President-Elect, American Psychoanalytic Association
Dr. Gourguechon is President of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Her previous positions with that organization include Secretary, Editor of the quarterly magazine The American Psychoanalyst, and Chair of a national fellowship program. Her leadership goals within psychoanalysis are numerous. They include establishing a comprehensive structure to provide psychoanalytic input to educational systems from pre-kindergarten to professional levels, and increasing the voice of psychoanalysis within the broader community to enhance the understanding of urgent social and cultural issues. In addition, she focuses on the core values of psychoanalysis (individualization of treatment, the sanctity of doctor/patient confidentiality and the importance of the therapeutic relationship) to try to influence the modern healthcare environment.
Dr. Gourguechon has a private practice in psychoanalysis and psychiatry in Northfield and Chicago, which includes providing psychoanalytic consultation to law firms and corporations.
<<back to Board of Advisor
Craig Johnson, PhD
Director, Eating Disorders Program, The Laureate Hospital
Dr. Johnson has been a leader in the field of Eating Disorders for over 27 years. He is Director of the Eating Disorders Program at Laureate Psychiatric Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Oklahoma Medical School and formerly held faculty appointments at Yale University, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University Medical Schools. He was the Founding Editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders and a Founding Member of the Academy for Eating Disorders and the Eating Disorders Research Society. He is also Past President of the National Eating Disorders Association. Dr. Johnson has authored three books and over 70 scientific articles, and has received several distinguished contribution awards.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Joan Lebow, Esq.
Principal, Lebow, Malecki and Tasch, LLC
Joan Lebow is a Manager and Co-founder of Lebow, Malecki & Tasch, LLC. She concentrates on transactions in clinical services delivery, information technology transfer and licensing, corporate organization, intellectual property development and protection, reimbursement, insurance including ERISA and managed care and regulatory compliance. Her practice focuses on entrepreneurial and clinical businesses.
Previously, Ms. Lebow served as General Counsel of ibex Healthdata Systems, Inc., which provides Web-based software applications to hospitals and physicians. As General Counsel, Ms. Lebow managed and provided all legal services, including development and protection of intellectual property assets, software licensing and sublicensing, and corporate transactions and employment. She served as Corporate Secretary and was a member of the Senior Executive Team.
Ms. Lebow started the Legal Department of Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago, and was its General Counsel for 13 years. During her tenure, she was responsible for regulatory compliance, and corporate transactions and managed all trials and appeals. She handled all insurance, including commercial and general liability, malpractice liability and self-insurance. Ms. Lebow provided all regulatory and transactional support of insurance subsidiaries. She also managed the regulatory compliance of the Medical Center, with emphasis in the areas of public and private reimbursement and clinical operations.
Prior to her work at Illinois Masonic, Ms. Lebow served as Assistant General Counsel of Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she engaged in a broad healthcare and corporate practice. She represented Northwestern in state and federal administrative hearings, and handled ERISA and employee benefit issues, medical staff and licensed professional regulatory affairs. As an associate with the firm of Lord, Bissell & Brook, she handled direct litigation and appeals, insurance coverage disputes and general corporate matters.
Ms. Lebow is an Adjunct Professor of Health Law at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago-Kent College of Law, and is a Scholar affiliated with the Institute of Science, Law and Technology, a joint program between IIT and Chicago-Kent. She is a member of the American Health Lawyers Association, the Illinois Association of Health Care Attorneys, the National Association of Minority and Women Owned Law Firms, and is a past President, Officer and Board Member of the Chicago Chapter of the American Corporate Counsel Association. She serves on the Board of the Little City Foundation, advises the Board of Directors of The Family Institute and actively raises funds for the Bottomless Closet and Literature for All of Us. She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Senior Business Women's Forum.
Ms. Lebow received her Bachelor’s degree in Religious Philosophy from Pitzer College, The Claremont Colleges, in 1975, and received her JD from the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law, in 1978.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Jeffrey Nemetz
Principal, Healthcare Branding Group, Inc.
Jeffrey Nemetz is a Principal of HBG and a lead Brand Strategist for its global client base. He is responsible for creating the highly acclaimed “inside” brand process, a six-step proprietary program for brand development, deployment and diagnosis. Mr. Nemetz has facilitated strategic branding sessions for start-up and established organizations on both the medical and consumer sides of healthcare. He is recognized nationally in branding and has been published and invited to lecture on the value of brands to leading professionals in the healthcare sector. In addition to his consulting career, Mr. Nemetz has had operational experience. Mr. Nemetz was President of Shane Oral Health Pharmaceuticals, makers of Shane Toothpaste, the only toothpaste in the world with a patented aloe vera formula.
Prior to his work with Shane, Mr. Nemetz was President/CEO of MedPro Software, a medical interactive multi-media company. MedPro was one of the first companies in the country to utilize this media for product promotion, physician education and sales training in the healthcare industry. Under his guidance, MedPro was awarded the opportunity to develop the first medical encyclopedia in CD-ROM format for World Book International. Mr. Nemetz also had product brand management experience working with two of Chicago’s heritage brands, McDonald’s, where he helped launch breakfast on a national scale, and Sunbeam.
Mr. Nemetz is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he received his post-graduate degrees as a James Webb Young Fellow. Mr. Nemetz holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration, a Master’s of Science degree in Communications and a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications.
He is an active member of several professional healthcare associations and devotes significant time to multiple boards and charitable foundations, contributing his strategic skills and leadership experience.
<<back to Board of Advisors
William M. Pinsof, PhD, LMFT, ABPP
President and Professor, The Family Institute at Northwestern University
William Pinsof is President of The Family Institute, Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences at Northwestern University and the Director of the Center for Applied Psychological and Family Studies at Northwestern. He currently teaches in the Northwestern University Master of Science in Marital and Family Therapy Program and also teaches both undergraduate and post-doctoral courses for Northwestern University students.
His academic and research work has focused on evaluating the outcome of marital and family therapy, understanding the process of marital and family therapy, and the integration of different therapeutic approaches for maximal cost effectiveness.
His work on psychotherapy integration culminated in the publication of Integrative Problem Centered Therapy: A Synthesis of Family, Individual and Biological Therapies by Basic Books. He has also edited four books: Family Psychology: The Art of the Science, that he co-edited with Jay Lebow, published by Oxford University Press; a special issue of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy that he co-edited with Lyman C. Wynne, dedicated to reviewing all of the controlled research on the outcomes of couple and family therapy; a special issue of Family Process entitled, "Marriage in the 20th Century in Western Civilization: Trends, Research, Therapy, and Perspectives;” and the classic work he co-edited with Leslie Greenberg, The Psychotherapeutic Process: A Research Handbook.
Additionally, Dr. Pinsof is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. Dr. Pinsof received the Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Family Therapy Research Award from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy in 1996, the Distinguished Contribution to Family Therapy Theory and Practice Award from the American Family Therapy Academy in 2001, and the 2001 Family Psychologist of the Year from the American Psychological Association Division 43 - Family Psychology.
Dr. Pinsof received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He is a licensed clinical psychologist and licensed marriage and family therapist as well as an approved supervisor of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. He treats individuals, couples and families.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Allan Schore, PhD
Editor, Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology
Dr. Schore is an internationally recognized pioneer and scholar in the neuroscience of attachment and affect self-regulation. He is on the clinical faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine. He is also the Editor of the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology.
Dr. Schore’s groundbreaking book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, integrates a large number of experimental and clinical studies from both the psychological and the biological disciplines in order to construct an over-arching model of social and emotional development. Since then he has expanded his regulation theory in more than two dozen articles and essays covering multiple disciplines, including neuroscience, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, developmental psychology, attachment and trauma.
His book, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) contains writings on developmental effective neuroscience and developmental neuropsychiatry. Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology #2) contains chapters on neuropsychoanalysis and developmentally-oriented psychotherapy. The Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology also publishes the Allan N. Schore Set and the Reader's Guide to Affect Regulation and Neurobiology.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Joseph Shenton, Jr.
Investment Banker, Bernstein Global Wealth Management
Mr. Shenton joined Lehman Brothers as Senior Vice President in March of 2007. During the six years prior, Mr. Shenton served as a Principal of Sanford C. Bernstein. Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer of JobPlex, Inc., an Internet-based search firm and software provider headquartered in Chicago. He began his career in 1995, after his undergraduate work at the University of Vermont, as a consultant with the executive search firm, DHR International. When the firm was acquired by EPS Solutions Corp. (a $250MM business service company), he was named Vice President of Business Development and Operations. Mr. Shenton currently serves on the Board of Children‘s Memorial Hospital as well as several privately held companies.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Michael Strober, PhD, ABPP
Franklin Mint Chair in Eating Disorders and Professor of Psychiatry
David Geffen School of Medicine
Dr. Michael Strober is the Franklin Mint Professor of Eating Disorders and Psychiatry at the University of California at Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, and Director of the Eating Disorders Program at UCLA’s Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neurospychiatric Hospital.
Dr. Strober joined the faculty of the UCLA Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in 1975, and has served as Director of the Eating Disorders without interruption for the past 30 years. In addition to his extensive clinical expertise in the area of consultation and treatment, he has authored nearly 200 scientific articles and book chapters, and his accomplishments in research, service and teaching have been recognized by the National Eating Disorders Association (2005 Award for Excellence in Teaching), and the Academy for Eating Disorders (2005 Award for Excellence in Teaching and Education). His research activities have been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health for over 15 years, and focus on the role of personality, family and genetic influences in anorexia and bulimia nervosa, and predictors of long-term recovery. Today, the eating disorders program is recognized internationally as a center of excellence for the care it provides to children and adults.
Dr. Strober is a founding member and past President of the Eating Disorders Research Society, a Founding Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders, has served as advisor and consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health on research priorities in eating disorders, and is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
<<back to Board of Advisors
Jennifer L. Tanner, PhD
Fellow, National Institute of Mental Health Research
Dr. Tanner is currently a National Institute of Mental Health Research Fellow at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers University. Prior to her fellowship years, she was Research Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Simmons College in Boston. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals, books and handbooks and presented in professional forums. Dr. Tanner’s research program takes a multidisciplinary approach to developing theory of normal, abnormal and optimal development from adolescence to young adulthood, roughly ages 12 to 35. Complementing theory design, her empirical work takes advantage of cutting-edge methodologies to examine ways in which different pathways taken from adolescence through emerging and young adulthood are associated with diverse experiences and outcomes (e.g., mental health, health, functioning). She is dedicated to translating her work and the work of others to inform programs, policies and services that seek to enhance and optimize development and adjustment during the transition to adulthood.
Dr. Tanner balances her research career with teaching, consulting, advising and writing for a wide-variety of audiences including the book Emerging Adults in the 21st Century, which she co-authored with Jeffery Arnett, PhD. She has taught undergraduate and graduate level courses since 1998 in departments of Psychology at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts; Human Development and Family Studies at the Pennsylvania State University; Child Development at Tufts University: and Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology at Boston College. Established with the First Conference on Emerging Adulthood in 2003, Dr. Tanner is Co-Chair of the Society for Research on Emerging Adulthood dedicated to the goal of connecting an interdisciplinary, international network of scholars interested in and dedicated to the study of individuals between ages 18 and 29. She serves on the Editorial Boards of The Journal of Adolescent Research and The Journal of Youth and Adolescence.
<<back to Board of Advisors
|