Teaching Faculty

Core Training Faculty 

Roma Vasa, MD

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
• Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
• Director, Developmental Neuropsychiatry Scholar’s Program 
• Director of Psychiatric Services, Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSI™)
• Director, Faculty Development in Child Psychiatry

Dr. Vasa completed her general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry training at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Vasa has had over 20 years of experience in the field of developmental neuropsychiatry as a clinician, researcher, and educator. In her clinic, she sees children and adolescents with autism and traumatic brain injury. Her research focuses on anxiety, emotion dysregulation, and mental health crises in autism. She serves on the editorial board for leading child psychiatry journals, is the Co-Chair of the Autism and Intellectual Disability Committee and is a member of the Committee on Quality Issues of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). Dr. Vasa is committed to advancing training in developmental neuropsychiatry and has mentored many residents and faculty in this area.

Jay Salpekar, MD, FANPA 

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
• Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
• Medical Director, Neuropsychiatry Center 

Dr. Jay Salpekar completed his general psychiatry at Barnes Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis and did a child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at the Yale University Child Study Center. He has been an academician overlapping psychiatry and neurology for over 25 years. He is a distinguished fellow in the American Epilepsy Society, the American Neuropsychiatric Association and in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The American Epilepsy Society recently honored him with the Rebecca Goldman Kaufman Award for Ethical Neuropsychiatry. He is a long-time principal investigator for clinical research projects involving psychiatric illness associated with epilepsy. He recently co-edited a textbook, Pediatric Neuropsychiatry: A Case Based Approach, which emphasized those themes. He is internationally renowned, with clinical consultation and lectures that span the globe.

Aaron J. Hauptman, MD

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Neuropsychiatrist
• Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine 
• Associate Director, Developmental Neuropsychiatry Scholars Program
• Associate Director of Neuropsychiatry

Dr. Hauptman joined the faculty at Kennedy Krieger Institute in 2021 after previously working as faculty at Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He completed training in general adult psychiatry, child and adolescent psychiatry and behavioral neurology/neuropsychiatry. He has particular interest in working with children and their families around diagnoses such as pediatric neurodegenerative disorders, cerebral palsy, epilepsy syndromes, catatonia and neuroimmunological diseases. In addition, his focus is on education in pediatric neuropsychiatry.

Teaching Faculty

• Miya Asato, MD
  • Neurodevelopmental disabilities, leadership, education, program development
• Minhee Bay, MD
  • Neurobehavioral profiles of children with Down syndrome and ASD
• Gabrielle Blackman, MD
  • School-based psychiatric interventions
• Dejan Budimirovic, MD
  • Fragile X treatment trials
• George Capone, MD
  • Down Syndrome
• Roula Choueiri, MD
  • Early detection of ASD
• Sharon Conty, MS, CCC-SLP
  • Complex autism evaluations, social skills training
• Shannon Dean, MD, PhD
  • Movement disorders
• Brad Grant, DO
  • Clinical trials, neurodevelopmental disorders, trauma
• Joyce Harrison, MD
  • Preschool children with mental and developmental problems.
• Ji Su Hong, MD
  • Autism assessment in very young children, Research Units in Behavioral Intervention
• Garland Jones, PhD
  • Autism assessment in the context of psychiatric co-morbidities, cultural, and/or gender-based factors; access to care
• Amy Keefer, PhD
  • Psychotherapy of children with ASD
• Carmen Lopez, MD
  • Neurodevelopmental disorders and psychiatric comorbidities, systems of care
• Joseph F McGuire, PhD
  • OCD, tics, trichotillomania
• Raj Mahajan, MD
  • Neurobehavioral syndromes, psychosis, neurodevelopmental disorders
• Stephanie Morris, MD
  • Neurofibromatosis, Fragile X Syndrome, autism, neurogentetics
• Beth Slomine, PhD
  • Brain injury, neuropsychological rehabilitation, education
• Clay Smith, MD
  • Down syndrome and neurodevelopment
• Stacey Suskauer, MD
  • Traumatic brain injury, neuroimaging
• Elaine Tierney, MD
  • Simvastatin therapy in Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome.
• Souraya Torbey, MD
  • Pain syndromes and management, functional neurological disorder
• Lee Wachtel, MD
  • Catatonia in ASD