Student Bios

Kim Belfor, M.S.
I earned a degree in Counseling Psychology from Dominican University in 2009. I completed a two year psychodynamic traineeship at Community Institute for Psychotherapy where I worked with adolescents, adults, families and couples. I am currently an associate at the Marina Counseling Center and intend to complete my M.F.T. hours by the summer of 2012. My interests include cross-cultural psychotherapy and American Relational theory.

Maria Bradley-Moore, M.D.
I am originally from New York City. I went to Harvard for college and majored in Comparative Religion. I then decided to become a psychiatrist after college, and did post-bacc at Columbia University and medical school at Columbia Presbyterian, where the tradition of psychodynamic therapy is a strong one. For residency training, I took the opportunity to move out to San Francisco and have just completed the UCSF residency training this June. I am currently working at the Tenderloin Outpatient Clinic where I have the ability to combine therapy with medication management. I am also going to be starting up a half-day private practice. I have loved psychotherapy since third year of residency, so I am very much looking forward to getting to know the community at SFCP and doing a deeper study of psychoanalytic thought!

Mark Choa, M.D.
I am currently in my 4th year of psychiatry residency at UC Davis. I live in Sacramento and I also end up spending a lot of time in the Bay Area. I grew up in Maryland but have found myself to be a Californian at heart ever since my undergrad years at UC Berkeley. I went to medical school at the University of Virginia and obtained my MD in 2004. I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing after residency, but I plan to stay in California and I may pursue more psychoanalytic training. In my free time I enjoy taking road trips, playing guitar and bass, listening to rock and soul music, watching sci-fi and David Lynch movies, cooking, and painting.

April Crofut, M.D.
I am a fourth-year psychiatry resident at UC Davis. I graduated from UC Davis and I received my undergraduate degree from Pomona College. I am originally from Fresno, CA. Outside of psychiatry and psychodynamic psychotherapy, my interests include bikram yoga, hiking, and running. I plan to run my first marathon in the spring of 2012.

Maryam Eskandri, M.D.
I am a psychiatrist who is primarily interested in psychotherapy. I just graduated from residency and started private practice in July 2011, which I'm very excited about. My interests in psychotherapy are wide and varied, but I do have a special interest in existential philosophy & how it can be applied to & woven into the practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. I've found it particularly germane when working with people who are struggling with cancer or terminal illness, but also relevant to the treatment of depression & anxiety. Other interests I enjoy include: traveling & learning other languages, spending time with friends & family, painting, ballet & modern dance, listening to music, watching artsy movies, and admiring birds (including my 2 little green parrots). By next year, I hope I'll be able to add playing the mandolin to this list.

David Fakhri, D.O.
I completed my medical training at Michigan State University, College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2003 and completed residency training in adult psychiatry at UC Davis in 2007. For the last 4 years I have been working as an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC Davis. My clinical practice includes individual psychodynamic psychotherapy and medication management. I also have an interest in psychotherapy process groups. I am bilingual and able to see Spanish-speaking clients on a case by case basis. I recently began private practice in the Sacramento area and will continue training psychiatry residents in psychotherapy as part of the volunteer clinical faculty at UC Davis.

Hilary Foster, Ph.D.
I work at Kaiser Oakland primarily seeing patients with chronic physical pain. I also have a small private practice where I see a mix of people including those who struggle with eating disorders. I have always been drawn to and touched by psychoanalytic ideas and hope to develop greater skill in this area.

Dennett Hanssmann, M.D.
My medical career began at the University of Iowa, but soon I was feeling disillusioned in my, then, choice of internal medicine. Eventually, it was UCLA for a psychiatric residency, which I loved, following which came practice, primarily oriented toward psychotherapy, in Sacramento for the last thirty-four years. After years of ambivalence about seeking analytic credentials, and inspired in my own therapy, I have decided to become more involved with colleagues with similar interests and passions, though at seventy, full-fledged analytic dreams seem too ambitious. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn together, and hope to contribute and to take in what others have to offer.

Jennifer Jackson, L.C.S.W.
I am a lecturer at UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare where I teach graduate level practice courses and undergraduate level human behavior courses focusing on intimate partner violence. I am also a Faculty Field Liaison at San Jose State University School of Social Work, facilitating seminars and ensuring a cohesive education in the field practicum for MSW students. In addition, I have a private practice. Prior to this, I worked as a therapist at Foothill College Student Psychological Services. Previously, I worked for six years at the UCSF/San Francisco General Hospital Trauma Recovery Center, providing trauma-informed psychotherapy and case management to adults who were victims of interpersonal violence.

Jenya Kaufman, M.D.
I was born in NY and raised in South Florida with my younger brother. I went to Columbia for college and then spent several years teaching. I taught elementary school in rural Mississippi with Teach for America and then taught high school in NY. After finding that classroom teaching was not for me, I completed post-bacc coursework and moved out to California to attend medical school at Stanford. I am recently married, live in SF and am in my fourth year of Psychiatry Residency at UCSF.

Sunny Kuegle, Psy.D.
I am a Wright Institute graduate, licensed and working in private practice in Oakland. I also spend much of my workweek as a contract psychologist for California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) at San Quentin State Prison where I don a whistle, a stab proof vest and an alarm, and engage inmates in individual psychotherapy. I am a member of SFCP's East Bay Extension Division Committee and was co-chair for SFCP's North Bay Psychotherapy Forum committee. I am a member of NCSPP and have served on the Board of Directors of NCSPP.

Amy Levin, M.A.
I come to the PPTP as a psychological assistant of Beth Steinberg, PhD. I have a private practice in San Francisco where I work with adults doing individual psychotherapy. In the coming years, I hope to expand my training and practice to include work with teens. I am a doctoral candidate at the Wright Institute and I completed my predoctoral internship at California Pacific Medical Center Department of Psychiatry in June. I am currently working on my dissertation which is on unconscious aspects of mobile social networking. Prior to beginning my study in psychology, I had a career as a public high school teacher teaching Italian. I grew up in the East Bay and now live with my husband in SF. I am excited to be a part of the PPTP and am looking forward to the next two years of learning, friend-making and professional growth.

Kiera Levine, M.D.
I am originally from Washington, D.C. and grew up there with my parents, older brother and younger sister. I went to college at Yale, where I majored in philosophy . After graduating, I spent several years working in a variety of health and human rights non-profit organizations and then returned to school at Yale School of Medicine. I am currently one of the chief residents at UCSF in the Department of Psychiatry, and after graduation, I hope to begin psychoanalytic training as soon as I am able.

Shay Loftus, Ph.D.
I am a psychologist, currently working in Kaiser-Vallejo Psychiatry Department. I graduated from Fordham University in the Bronx, NY in 2004; completed my pre-doctoral internship at the VA Hudson Valley Health Care System in Montrose, NY and my post-doctoral residency with Kaiser Permanente in 2008. I treat adult outpatients with a range of issues, typically in a brief therapy format.

Beth Miller, Ph.D.
I went back to school after raising my two sons and have been in private practice in San Francisco since 1993. I have enjoyed a rich and satisfying work life of clinical work, teaching and writing. I facilitated the group therapy program for the UCSF psychiatry residents for four years and published a book on developing resilience (coming out of my dissertation). I have previously been trained and focused on Jungian psychology and am very much looking forward to deepening in developmental and transference issues through this program. And after many years in the field I am excited to be joining others to share ideas, expand my understanding of our inner worlds, and deepen my practice and ability to listen.

Susan Moore, M.F.T.
I am thrilled to begin my training with the PPTP and look forward to deepening my connection with the SFCP community. I trained at the McAuley Institute and worked at the Boyer House Foundation before establishing a private practice in San Francisco. Here, I work with adults and adolescents. When I am not working I enjoy singing, cooking, and most recently, kayaking.

Michael Murphy, M.D.
I'm a fourth-year psychiatry resident at UCSF. I grew up in New Jersey with my parents and older brother. I studied biochemistry at Harvard as an undergraduate, where I also developed an academic interest in literary/critical theory. For medical school, I attended Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. My career plans are unclear at this point, but I intend to pursue further training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

John O'Neal, M.D.
I am a psychiatrist with a part-time private practice in Sacramento and a part-time position at San Joaquin County Behavioral Health in Stockton. I have been in private practice in the Sacramento area for over twenty years, doing a mix of psychotherapy and med management, and also worked a number of years at Kaiser. I received my MD degree from the University of Washington in Seattle and a Master's degree in clinical psychology from Harvard University. My two grown sons live nearby and I enjoy seeing them frequently. Psychopharmacology has been a major interest, and I have co-authored several books on the subject, but I am now looking forward to pursuing my interest in psychotherapy.

Christina Papanestor, L.C.S.W.
I come to the PPTP with great excitement and hope for deepening my working knowledge and practical application of psychoanalytic theory in both agency and private practice settings. A former APsaA Fellow, and active SFCP community member, I am eager to re-engage in analytic training. I have a general private practice in San Francisco where I see individuals and couples, and am a staff clinician at Kaiser Permanente's Eating Disorders Intensive Outpatient Program. Committed to bringing psychoanalytic thinking to the community and increasing public awareness of the value of clinical social work practice, I am on the Advisory Committee of the Coalition for Clinical Social Work (CCSW). I am a graduate of Smith College School for Social Work, where I serve as an Adjunct Instructor/Research Advisor to M.S.W. students.

Michael Scott L.C.SW.
I have a private psychotherapy and consultation practice in San Francisco working with children, adolescents, families, adults and couples. I have 15 years of experience with SFCP Early Childhood Mental Health Program working in the Bayview/Hunters Point community and extensive experience in the provision of services to inner city, disdavantaged populations. I play the electric bass and like to ride my bike.

Susmita Shah, M.F.T.
I work with adults and seniors in private practice and agency settings. I am the program supervisor of behavioral health services at Curry Senior Center and an instructor at the UC Berkeley Extension. I chair the Community Membership, co-chair the San Francisco Psychotherapy Forum, and serve on the Board of Trustees at SFCP.

Priya Sonik, M.D.
I am originally from Sacramento, and I am the second oldest of four children. My father is from Punjab, India, and immigrated to the US to do his residency training in Internal Medicine. My mom was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I went to UC Berkeley for undergrad and ventured south to UC Irvine for medical school. I finished my "tour of the UC's" at UC Davis Medical Center for my Psychiatry Residency, and I just graduated from that program in June. I currently work part-time for Sacramento County in an outpatient capacity, and I just opened up a private practice where I am doing psychodynamic psychotherapy and medication management. It is a busy but exciting time, and I am looking forward to meeting new people with a shared interest in psychotherapy!

Sarah Steinberg, M.A.
I am a doctoral student at the Wright Institute, currently completing my dissertation and applying for predoctoral internships. The bulk of my clinical experience has been in community mental health, including work at the San Francisco Child Abuse Center, Westside Community Services, and New Leaf. I have also done psychological testing and assessment at the California Department of Rehabilitation. My clinical orientation integrates psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and social justice approaches, with particular interests in helping people recover from trauma and drug abuse, working with LGBT communities, and maintaining awareness around race and culture. In my life before studying psychology, I worked variously as a photographer, an office manager in market research, and a copyeditor. Outside of psychology, I am a writer and a fitness enthusiast. I feel very lucky to be part of this first year of Foundations/PPTP!

Dona Tversky, M.D., MPH
I was born in Jerusalem, Israel and grew up in an academic home in Stanford, CA, where I now live again. In the intervening years I went to Yale for college and then spent time working in public radio and public health and living in New York, Cape Town (South Africa), Boston, Philadelphia and then San Francisco. I completed my first three years of psychiatry residency at UCSF and recently transferred to Stanford for my fourth year to be closer to my growing family.