Iraira Butcher, PsyD

After earning a Bachelor’s degree from Virginia State University and a Master’s degree from Long Island University, Dr. Iraira Butcher graduated with a doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the Universidad Santa María la Antigua located in the Republic of Panama. She is a certified Psychotherapist and currently works in her private practices located in the Provinces of West Panama and Panama in the Republic of Panama. Although she has been studying Psychoanalysis since 2018, she began training with the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center in the Fall of 2021. Due to her passion with mental health, social service and issues of gender, diversity, equality and equity, Dr. Butcher dedicates time to creative writing through her Afro Analysis project as well as serving as the director of Inspiring Girls Panama, which is a program that uses an array of activities, thematic encounters and connections with female role models, to help girls, adolescents and young adults find inspiration to achieve their educational and professional goals.

Kelly Bolger, Ph.D.

Kelly completed her doctoral work in clinical psychology at The New School for Social Research and her clinical training at NYU/Bellevue Hospital in New York City. Her doctoral research and continued interests center around the change process of psychotherapy and she considers her research and training at The Brief Psychotherapy Research Program at Beth Israel Hospital to have significantly shaped her thinking early in her training. She moved back home to her home town of New Orleans for postdoctoral training in 2014 and currently works at a small group practice there.

 

Rachel Hammer, MD

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Dr. Hammer came to New Orleans in 2007 as a public high school teacher after Katrina. She completed a Masters in Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction during medical school at Mayo Clinic, and completed combined residency training at Tulane in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry in 2020. She joined the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Affairs division of Primary Care and Psychiatry where she seeks to integrate primary care and psychiatry for patients with serious mental illness. Also at VA, she runs a post-ICU syndrome clinic for veterans who survive critical illness. She serves as Psychiatry Clerkship Director for the Tulane School of Medicine. She assists as associate program director for Tulane combined IM/Psych residency program. Her professional interests include narrative medicine, psychosomatic symptoms and illness, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and integrative primary care. She is grateful to be a recent lymphoma survivor.

 

Evelina Jagminaite, LPC

Over the years, Evelina’s teaching, research, and clinical work have taken her to Lithuania, Uganda, Brazil, Spain, Colombia, Guatemala, and the US. Able to communicate in five languages English, Spanish, Lithuanian, Russian, and beginner Portuguese, she gained extensive work experience in culturally and structurally diverse contexts. As a Youth Program Coordinator in Guatemala, she served as a liaison among non for profit organizations, public schools, and community centers. Over the last 5 years as a licensed clinical counsellor and art therapist she has provided counselling to diverse populations in various community mental health settings and schools in greater New Orleans. Currently she works at the Tulane University Counselling Center as a mental health counsellor. Her educational background includes BA in Anthropology, MA in International Policy and Administration from the University of Florida, and MA in Art Therapy and Counselling from the Art Institute of Chicago. She has completed trainings in Theraplay and Trust Based Relational Intervention TBRI.

 

 

Jeffrey Sibrack MD

Jeffrey Sibrack moved to New Orleans in 2013 from North Carolina for residency training in Psychiatry and Internal Medicine at Tulane. Prior to medical training, he studied Spanish at the University of North Carolina. He currently works as faculty with the Tulane Department of Psychiatry, at the New Orleans VA Medical Center and DePaul Community Health Center. He provides mental health, primary care, addiction, and pain management services. He is also involved in medical education and training. Working in diverse clinical settings, his work is rooted in psychoanalytic thinking that explores personal challenges, symptoms, and disease in the context of an individual, their relationships, and their social context. In 2019, he completed a two-year psychoanalytic psychotherapy fellowship through the New Orleans-Birmingham Psychoanalytic Center where he is pursuing further psychoanalytic training. He has a small psychotherapy practice.

 

Kulvadee Thongpibul, PsyD, JD

Kulvadee “A” Thongpibul is a clinical psychologist, licensed in both Louisiana and Thailand. She received the Doctor of Psychology degree from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She completed her pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. She currently practices and teaches in Thailand. She enjoys traveling and exploring new cultures, reading interesting books, and watching all kinds of films.  

 

Psychotherapy Advanced Fellows

 

Anna Kelley, MD

Dr. Anna Kelley is a licensed clinical psychologist and an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University. She specializes in infant and early childhood mental health and is especially interested in the effects of early childhood adversity and supporting young children and their caregivers develop healthy attachment relationships. In addition to her work with young children, Dr. Kelley provides psychotherapy to adolescents and young adults. Dr. Kelley’s worldview and approach to therapy are influenced by growing up in different countries and cultures, and she is passionate about providing diversity-informed care. Dr. Kelley has an active mindfulness and meditation practice, teaches yoga and loves being in nature, especially the ocean.

 

Deborah Levy, MD

Deborah is originally from Chicago, IL. She attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where she graduated with a BA in philosophy. During her undergraduate degree she spent a semester studying philosophy and sitar in New Delhi, India. After college she spent a year working at a free clinic for asylum seekers and migrant workers in Jaffa, Israel run by Physicians for Human Rights. She then moved to New Orleans to complete a master’s degree in public health at the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine focusing on parasitology and tropical medicine. She completed medical school at the University of Queensland School of Medicine-Ochsner Clinical School in Brisbane, Australia and New Orleans, LA. She is currently in her fourth and final year of psychiatry residency at Tulane and will pursue a fellowship in public psychiatry at Columbia University after residency.  Outside of medicine, she enjoys playing piano, guitar and trombone and spending time with her loved ones.

 

Bo “Liz” Peng, MD

Liz is a psychiatrist at the New Orleans VA Medical Center, and she also has a telepsychiatry practice where she provides psychotherapy and integrative psychiatry services. She attended college at the University of Chicago where she studied biology with a specialization in endocrinology. She completed medical school at Rush University in Chicago.  She completed psychiatry residency at Tulane University, where she served as chief resident in her final year of training, and where she now serves as Adjunct Assistant Professor. At the VA, she supervises residents in psychotherapy and medication management, and she teaches a monthly psychotherapy course to third year psychiatry residents. Additionally, she teaches Tulane residents about wellness and advanced patient care.  Her background has led her to develop broad clinical experience in various modalities of therapy, including interpersonal therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and EMDR. Since completing residency she has received ongoing supervision and completed coursework in psychoanalytic psychotherapy and integrative and holistic psychiatry. Her practice focuses on working with patients who wish to go beyond acute symptom reduction by deeply exploring themselves to identify obstacles and conflicts that prevent them from leading fuller, more authentic lives.

Emily Schumacher, LPC

Emily Schumacher is a Licensed Professional Counselor and registered Art Therapist with over 8 years of experience in Psychotherapy. She is currently seeing clients in her private practice she opened 2 years ago. She believes in creating a safe space for client’s to explore the self. She specializes in individuals going through difficult life transitions, relationship issues, sexual issues and interests (kink friendly), anxiety, and depression. All are welcome in her office no matter how they identify their gender, sexuality, or type of relationship. She is queer allied as well as sex worker allied.