Our Postdoctoral Fellows
Emily Allen Paine, PHD
Dr. Emily Allen Paine is a T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute. She received her PhD in Sociology with a Certificate in LGBTQ/Sexualities from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019. Dr. Paine takes an intersectional, mixed-methods approach to examine structural inequities shaping minority health and well-being across social contexts. She is particularly motivated to understand—and develop interventions to address—how economic marginalization, race- and gender-based oppression, and multi-level stigma drive health disparities among gender and sexual minorities. Dr. Paine serves as a member of the NYC HIV Planning Group and strives to conduct community-driven minority health disparities research.
Dr. Paine’s work is organized within two areas of research. One focuses on understanding and addressing economic and racial inequity as root causes of minority health disadvantages. Along this line, Dr. Paine is the Principal Investigator of a pilot study to inform the future adaptation of an economic empowerment intervention for economically marginalized transgender and nonbinary people living with HIV or navigating HIV risk in the United States. The HIV Center Development Core funds this research.
Another line of research focuses on how structural, interpersonal, and intersectional stigma shapes sexual and gender minority health and well-being within healthcare and relational contexts. Dr. Paine currently serves as a Co-Investigator of a study, funded by the Smithers Foundation, examining barriers and facilitators to substance use treatment among sexual and gender minorities who use opioids. She also contributes to an ongoing NIDA-funded social intervention study designed to improve engagement in the HIV care continuum among gay, bisexual, and other men and transgender individuals who have sex with men in Kazakhstan. Past studies along this line of research were supported by the National Science Foundation (Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant), Urban Ethnography Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, CLAGS: Center for LGBTQ Research, and the National Institute on Aging.
Kareen Matouk, PhD
Kareen is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gender Identity Program at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Matouk specializes in providing care to children, adolescents, emerging adults, and families. She has had extensive training in LGBTQ+ mental health and follows a gender-affirmative model of care. During her pre- doctoral clinical internship at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center, she received focused training in child and adolescent care, including transgender healthcare, dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and trauma-informed clinical practice.
Previously, she also received training at NYU Child Study Center and the Gender and Family Project at the Ackerman Institute for the Family, where she provided evaluations of gender dysphoria, as well as gender affirmative care, including individual and group psychotherapy related to gender distress and social anxiety for children, adolescents, and families. These roles have afforded her the opportunity to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams of providers advocate for the needs of transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive children, adolescents, and their families.
In addition, Dr. Matouk has gained experience working with severe mental illness and inpatient psychiatric care at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, as well as conducting neuropsychological evaluations with children, adolescents, and young adults in various clinical settings. and to believes that integrating various treatment approaches and shaping her clinical practice to fit with the needs of each individual is fundamental. She strives to build mutual trust and provide a space that is open, compassionate, and empowering so that one can feel free to explore and accept their authentic self and to courageously challenge and change that which no longer serves them. Dr. Matouk has extensive clinical training in Psychodynamic, Dialectical Behavioral, and Cognitive Behavioral treatment modalities. She has experience being part of a DBT consultation team, including co-leading DBT groups and providing phone coaching to high-risk adolescents. Dr. Matouk She also values the importance of exploring how past relationships and experiences, as well as family dynamics and cultural factors, influence and shape one’s understanding of themselves and others. Dr. Matouk completed her undergraduate degree in psychology and child and adolescent mental health at New York University and her master’s in clinical psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. She completed her doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Long Island University – Brooklyn, where her research interests focused on gender and sexual identity development, as well as cultural factors and attachment.
Fellowship in the Center for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research
The Center for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research The Center for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research (CSGMHR) is a leader in training for established and emerging researchers committed to improving the health and lives of sexual and gender minority (SGM) people. The center aims to train the next generation of SGM health researchers to address limitations in the current workforce and increase the number of researchers trained in SGM research from underrepresented groups.
2017-2020: Kasey B. Jackman, PhD, RN, PMHNP-BC
Kasey B. Jackman, PhD, RN, PMHNP-BC was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Columbia University School of Nursing on the federally funded T32 grant Reducing Health Disparities through Informatics. Dr. Jackman earned a PhD from Columbia Nursing in 2017. Dr. Jackman’s dissertation research examining nonsuicidal self-injury among transgender people was awarded the Dissertation Excellence Award (2018) by the Columbia University School of Nursing. Dr. Jackman’s program of research focuses on prevention and treatment of mental health disparities among sexual and gender minority youth. Dr. Jackman’s research on the mental health of sexual and gender minority people has been published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology, Psychiatry Research, the Journal of Clinical Nursing, and LGBT Health. In clinical practice, Dr. Jackman is a psychiatric nurse practitioner who works with children and adolescents.
2017-2020: Cindy Veldhuis, PhD
Dr. Cindy Veldhuis (pronounced Veld-hice), an NIH/NIAAA Ruth Kirschstein Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Columbia University’s School of Nursing, received her PhD in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2016, and completed her masters (Cognitive Psychology) and bachelors (double major: Theater and Psychology) at the University of Oregon. Dr. Veldhuis has two main lines of research. The first line focuses on the effects of the 2016 presidential election and other political events on LGBTQ individuals. The second line of research, funded by an NIH Ruth Kirschstein National Research Service Award (F32), focuses the role of intimate relationships in sexual minority women’s alcohol use, and the intersections between sexual identity and race/ethnicity. Dr. Veldhuis also recently received pilot funding to fund her SOQIR (Study on Queer Intimate Relationships) study, which focuses on the health and well-being of same-sex female couples in the New York City area.
2018-2019: Thomas A. Vance, PhD
Thomas A. Vance, Ph.D. received his doctoral degree in counseling psychology at The University of Akron. He completed his pre-doctoral internship at Boston University Medical Center at The Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology (CMTP). His work examined the intersection of sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race/ethnicity, disability, class, and other identities and experiences. In his role at the Gender Identity Program, Dr. Vance researched, practiced, and advocated on the resilience of transgender people, gender non-binary youth, social justice and empowerment training related to mental health.
2016-2018: ROBERT-PAUL JUSTER, PHD
Over the last decade, Dr. Juster has developed expertise in measuring chronic stress known as allostatic load (AL) that describes the physiological dysregulations related to chronic stress and unhealthy behaviors. Contributions include AL studies in relation to aging stereotypes and geriatric depression, gender-roles and psychosomatic symptoms among workers, structural stigma and ‘coming out of the closet’ for sexual minorities, household overcrowding among the Inuit, and behavioral comorbidities among psychiatric patients. In the Division of Gender, Sexuality, and Health, working with Drs. Walter Bockting and Anke A. Ehrhardt, he researched the health and well-being of sexual minorities throughout lifespan development.
2015-2016: Philip Jai Johnson, PhD
Philip Jai Johnson, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from McGill University in Montreal. After obtaining his doctorate degree, he completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota, where he received extensive clinical training in addressing gender dysphoria in adults and adolescents, compulsive sexual behavior, sexual and relationship functioning difficulties, sex offender treatment, and sexual abuse recovery. His research during his fellowship explored the effects of minority stress on body image and sexual functioning in transgender people.
2014-2015: Laura Erickson-Schroth, MD, MA
The first LGBT Health Fellow (2014-2015) was Laura Erickson-Schroth, M.D., M.A., a Public Psychiatry Fellow who received her medical training at New York University. Dr. Erickson-Schroth is a member of the board of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and is the editor of the recently published Trans Bodies, Trans Selves, a landmark resource guide written by and for transgender people.