Core Training Faculty
Roma Vasa, MD
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
- Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
- Director, Developmental Neuropsychiatry Scholar’s Program
- Director of Psychiatric Services, Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSI™, formerly known as the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, or CARD)
- Director, Faculty Development in Child Psychiatry
Dr. Vasa completed her general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry training at John 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 spectrum disorder and traumatic brain injury. Her research focuses on anxiety, emotion dysregulation, and mental health crises in autism spectrum disorder. 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
- Medical Director, Neuropsychiatry Center at Kennedy Krieger Institute
- Kennedy Krieger Institute
Dr. Jay Salpekar is the director of the Pediatric Neuropsychiatry Center at Kennedy Krieger Institute, and is an associate professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University Medical School. He received Bachelor’s and Medical degrees from Washington University in St. Louis and continued at Barnes Hospital for general psychiatry and then 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.
Dr. Salpekar has distinguished fellow status 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 serves on the editorial boards for several journals including Epilepsy and Behavior, Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, Epilepsy Currents and the British Journal of Psychiatry--open. He is a long time principal investigator for clinical research projects involving psychiatric illness associated with epilepsy, and is widely published on how neuropsychiatric paradigms apply to pediatrics. 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. Current projects highlight the overlap of anxiety with epilepsy and explore novel treatments that may address both conditions simultaneously.
- Salpekar JA, Mula M, Common psychiatric comorbidities in epilepsy: How big of a problem is it?, Epilepsy & Behavior, 2019, 98; 293-297.
- Munger-Clary HM, Salpekar JA, Should adult neurologists play a role in the management of the most common psychiatric comorbidities? Practical considerations. Epilepsy & Behavior 2019, 98; 309-313.
- Basu T, Maguire J, Salpekar JA. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis targets for the treatment of epilepsy. Neuroscience Letters 746 (2021) 135618.
- Salpekar J. Neuropsychiatric effects of epilepsy in developmental disorders. Curr Opin Psychiatry. 2018 Mar; 31(2):109-115.
- Salpekar J. The Developmental Path for a Pediatric Neuropsychiatry Program. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 30:3, 2018, pp 180-182.
- Salpekar JA. The Decline of Screening: Psychiatry is Just Not that Simple. Epilepsy Currents 2021, Vol. 21 (5) 332-333.
Bradley Grant, DO
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Kennedy Krieger Institute
- Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
- Principal Investigator, Clinical Trials Unit
- Medical Director, Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress
Dr. Grant joined the faculty in 2015 after completing his general and child and adolescent psychiatry training at the University of Virginia. As medical director of the Center for Child and Family Traumatic Stress, Dr. Grant specializes in providing trauma-informed psychiatric care for children, teens and young adults. He received the 2018 Dr. Arabella Leet Award in Clinical Excellence. Dr Grant is passionate about developing safer, more effective psychopharmacological treatments and has served as principal investigator on over a dozen research protocols for individuals with psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders at the Clinical Trials Unit. As an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Dr. Grant provides clinical supervision and didactic teaching to psychiatry residents and child psychiatry fellows on the evaluation and treatment of pediatric trauma disorders, clinical trials research and psychopharmacology.
Aaron J. Hauptman, MD
- Board Certified Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
- Board Certified General Psychiatrist
- Board Certified Neuropsychiatrist
- Associate Director, Developmental Neuropsychiatry Scholars Program
- Associate Director of Neuropsychiatry at Kennedy Krieger Institute
- Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
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.
Psychiatry Faculty Expertise
- Gabrielle Blackman, MD
- Interests: School-based psychiatric interventions
- Dejan Budimirovic, MD
- Interests: Fragile X treatment trials
- Jeffrey Garofano, PhD
- Interests: Sleep and traumatic brain injury
- Marco Grados, MD, MPH
- Interests: Genetics of OCD, Cornelia de Lange
- Joyce Harrison, MD
- Interests: Evaluation and treatment of preschool children with mental and developmental problems.
- Ji Su Hong, MD
- Interests: Treatment of disruptive behavior in preschool children with ASD
- Sneha Jadhav MD
- Interests: Functional neurological symptom disorder, chronic medical illness
- Vamsi Kalari MD
- Interests: ASD, Traumatic brain injury, mental health crisis, education
- Amy Keefer, PhD
- Interests: Treatment of anxiety in children with ASD
- Rebecca Landa, PhD, CCC- SLP
- Interests: Markers and early intervention of ASD
- Carmen Lopez, MD
- Interests: Neurodevelopmental disorders and psychiatric comorbidities, Systems of care
- Joseph F McGuire, PhD
- Interests: OCD, tics, trichotillomania
- Raj Mahajan MD
- Interests: Neurobehavioral syndromes, psychosis, neurodevelopmental disorders
- Stewart Mostofsky, MD
- Interests: Neurobiological underpinnings of ASD and ADHD
- Mary Beth Nebel, PhD
- Interests: Functional neuroimaging and ASD
- Keri Rosch, PhD
- Interests: Neural correlates of behavior and cognition in ADHD
- Beth Slomine PhD
- Interests: Brain injury, neuropsychological rehabilitation, education
- Elaine Tierney, MD
- Interests: Simvastatin therapy in Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome.
- Souraya Torbey, MD
- Interests: Pain syndromes and management, functional neurological disorder
- Roma Vasa, MD
- Interests: Anxiety, neurodevelopmental disorders, traumatic brain injury
- Lee Wachtel, MD
- Interests: Catatonia in ASD
- Ericka Wodka, PhD
- Interests: Neurobiological underpinnings of sensory dysregulation in ASD