PsyD Faculty

David Teplin Dean of Psychology & Director, PsyD Program Dr. David Teplin is a licensed adult clinical psychologist. He received his doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, Illinois. He completed his doctoral internship at Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals in Hamilton, Ontario (CPA-accredited). He then completed his postdoctoral fellowship at St. Joseph’s Hospital, in Hamilton, Ontario. His primary areas of clinical practice are clinical/diagnostic assessment, adult ADHD, and substance use disorders. For many years, Dr. Teplin has taught various doctoral-level courses, including diagnostic psychopathology, professional ethics and conduct, substance use disorders and treatment, integrated psychological assessment, and advanced adult psychopathology. He also sits on the editorial review boards for the Journal of Attention Disorders, the Journal of Addictive Diseases, the Journal of Opioid Management, and the Journal of Psychology-Interdisciplinary and Applied. He is the founding member and first chairperson of the Canadian Psychological Association Section on Addiction Psychology. Dr. Teplin also chaired the Canadian Psychological Association Task Force on the Legalization of Cannabis in Canada.
Andrea Myrie-Nurse Director of Clinical Training Dr. Andrea Myrie-Nurse is a registered psychologist with extensive experience providing psychotherapy to individuals, couples and families. Beginning her career with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, Dr. Myrie-Nurse continued on to achieve her Masters of Arts in Counselling Psychology (MA). She returned to her graduate studies to receive her Doctor of Psychology. Prior to gaining extensive experience working with children and adolescents as a school psychologist for the Peel District School Board, Dr. Myrie-Nurse also worked with adults at the Whitby Mental Health Centre’s Outpatient and Schizophrenia units, as well as at the Toronto East General Hospital’s Brief Therapy Unit. In addition to Dr. Myrie-Nurse’s own professional practice, she is a professor at a private graduate school. Dr. Myrie-Nurse is a member of the Ontario Psychological Association (OPA) and the American Psychological Association (APA).
Christine Wekerle Director of Research Dr. Wekerle is an Associate Professor in Pediatrics and an Associate Member of the Offord Centre for Child Studies, McMaster University. She obtained her Ph.D. (Clinical Psychology) in 1995 from The University of Western Ontario, an American and Canadian Psychological Association accredited program, and conducted her accredited internship at McMaster, in Pediatrics. She is Editor-in-Chief of the premier international journal, Child Abuse & Neglect, and founding editor of the open-access journal, International Journal of Child and Adolescent Resilience. Dr. Wekerle has been an active scientist, publishing in peer-reviewed journals since 1987. Her research focuses on youth who have had adverse childhood experiences and their current mental health and resilience. She led the Maltreatment and Adolescent Pathways (MAP) Research Study partnered with Canada’s largest child welfare agencies to track youth outcomes across adolescence. The research-to-action video on this study was runner up in the CIHR IHDCYH Video Talks competition. Her team grant (#CIHRTeamSV) focuses on the impact of sexual violence victimization among male youth and young adults, seeking to understand components of resilience and developing intervention innovations. The #CIHRTeamSV research-to-action video won a special commendation prize in the CIHR Video Talks contest for 2017. This work is ongoing with ECPAT International as a key partner. Dr. Wekerle and team have developed a youth resilience app, JoyPopTM, to support day-to-day resilient functioning. Her new book with colleagues, Child Maltreatment (2nd Edition), is targeted to those whose practice engages them in the issues of child maltreatment.
Don McCaskill Adjunct Faculty Dr. Don McCaskill is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Indigenous Studies at Trent University where he taught for 47 years. He has held many positions including Chair of the department, Founding Director of the Indigenous Studies PhD Program and Director of the Indigenous Studies Thailand Year Abroad program. He has written many articles and edited eight books including: Indian Education in Canada: Vols. 1 and 2 (with Jean Barman and Yvonne Hebert). In the Words of the Elders (with Peter Kulchyski and David Newhouse), Development or Domestication: Indigenous Peoples of Southeast Asia (with Ken Kampe), and Living in a Globalized World: Ethnic Minorities of the Greater Mekong River Subregion ( with Prasit Leeprecha and He Schoying). He has been an editor of the Canadian Journal of Native Studies for over 30 years. He has worked in many First Nations communities as well as with several Aboriginal organizations and government departments. He has conducted research on such topics as Aboriginal education, community development, self-government, urbanization, law, justice and corrections, and international development. He recently completed two major community-based studies of urban Aboriginal people: The Urban Aboriginal Task Force (UATF) in Thunder Bay, Kenora, Barrie/Midland, Ottawa and Sudbury; and the Toronto Aboriginal Research Project (TARP) which was the largest research project ever conducted with Indigenous people in Toronto. He recently published a book entitled, Di-Bayn-Di-Zi-Win: To Own Ourselves, Embodying Ojibway-Anishinabe Ways with Jerry Fontaine published by Dundurn Press.
Michael Thrasher Adjunct Faculty Dr. Michael D. Thrasher LLD HC is a nationally recognized teacher of traditional First Nations Philosophy, tradition and culture. He is widely credited for his ability to use traditional First Nation’s knowledge to address contemporary issues and for his knowledge and practice of traditional ceremony. Significantly, Michael was one of the four traditional Teachers and Elders invited to conduct the sacred pipe ceremony at the opening of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal peoples. In addition, he was invited to co-chair the first Round Table Hearings for the Royal Commission. He is a past Federal Treasury Board Audit Committee member for the Indian Residential School Settlement and an Elder Advisor to the First Nations Statistical Institute, a crown corporation. His credentials include – L.L.D. honoris causa. Forty-five years of working with the Elders of the Canadian Indigenous community. He is an Adjunct Professor at Trent University Native Studies Ph.D. program. He has designed and presented a credit course on First Nations Psychotherapy – Adler School of Psychology. He was responsible for the creation of a curriculum framework for Urban First Nations education for the Toronto School Board, in Ontario, Canada. He has conducted seminars for personal development for the governing councils and staff of a number of First Nations and non-First Nations communities, organizations and industry. He has also conducted a European envoy/lecture tour in Belgium and Holland. His contacts and experiences cover a broad spectrum from communities and governments to multinational corporations.
Natasha Williams Adjunct Faculty Dr. Natasha Williams is a Registered Psychologist with the College of Psychologists of Ontario and the past Chair of the Board of Directors at Women’s Health in Women’s Hands, a Community Health Centre for black women and women of colour in Toronto. Dr. Williams is a member of the Ontario Psychological Association (OPA), the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), and the American Psychological Association (APA). She was the OPA’s diversity delegate representative at the APA State Leadership Conference in Washington D.C. in 2011 and is the past Chair of the OPA Diversity Task Force whose aim is to raise awareness of the importance of diversity and to promote ongoing efforts to influence social change in the field of psychology practice in Ontario. She is also a past board member of the Ontario Psychological Association. Dr. Williams is a past faculty member of the Bridge Training program for internationally trained mental health professionals and a former trainer for TAPE Educational services which provides professional development programs for clinical teams at healthcare centres and human services organizations. She is also the former lead trainer with the Adler Graduate Professional School in the CBT certificate program. Dr. Williams is a guest facilitator/trainer with CAMH on topics such as culturally adapting Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for the English-speaking Caribbean community and Motivational Interviewing. Dr. Williams is one of the founding directors of Allied Psychological Services and she operates an anti-oppressive private practice providing assessment, individual and group psychotherapy, corporate consultation, research, supervision and training services to clients from diverse ethno-racial backgrounds, gender and socio-economic backgrounds. Dr. Williams is also certified in Parental Capacity Assessments, and she is a certified Diversity, Equity and Inclusion facilitator/trainer.
Diana Mandeleew Adjunct Faculty Dr. Diana Mandeleew, Psy. D., C. Psych. is a licensed clinical psychologist with the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO). She completed a Master of Arts and a Doctor of Psychology degrees from the Adler School of Professional Psychology (Adler University). Her clinical experience included positions at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Surrey Place Centre and the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre (SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health). For the past 20+ years, Dr. Diana Mandeleew has been conducting psychological and psychoeducational assessments, providing ADHD coaching, psychotherapy and consultations to adults, adolescents and children with focusing issues, social, emotional, behavioural and learning concerns. In addition to teaching graduate-level psychology courses at the Adler Graduate Professional School, she supervises clinicians and psychoeducational instructors, is on the CPO’s Client Relations Committee, and is the founder and clinical psychologist at Psychology Wellness. She has a collaborative, strength-based and empathetic approach.
Julie Goldenson Adjunct Faculty Dr. Julie Goldenson is a clinical and forensic psychologist registered in good standing with the College of Psychologists of Ontario. Coming from a scientist-practitioner model, Dr. Goldenson has been involved in academia in both administrative and teaching roles. She was an Assistant Program Head at the University of Guelph-Humber and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto (OISE). Dr. Goldenson remains actively engaged in research and has a number of first-author publications related to forensic psychological assessment, the psychological impact of trauma, domestic violence, female offenders, and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and resilience among at-risk youth. She is a member of the Program in Psychiatry and the Law in association with Massachusetts Mental Health Center/Harvard Medical School and is the 2021 recipient of the Strasburger Award in recognition of her contributions to this program. Dr. Goldenson has interned and worked in a variety of psycho-legal contexts; e.g., the San Diego Superior Court, multiple sites associated with the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission in British Columbia, and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. She has been engaging in both assessment and treatment of diverse clientele for close to two decades, and she supervises other mental health professionals. Collaboration and giving back to the field of psychology are important to Dr. Goldenson, and she is the past president of the Ontario Psychological Association.
Dita Andersson Everett Adjunct Faculty Dr. Andersson Everett is a registered clinical psychologist with a background in developmental psychology. Clinically, she works primarily from a relational psychodynamic perspective. This means that she pays close attention to what is occurring in the moment as a way of identifying relational patterns, assumptions, and ways of coping that have been shaped by past experiences. In terms of training, Dr. Andersson Everett earned an MPhil in Developmental Psychology at Cambridge University in England, a masters degree in Counseling Psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, and a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology at Boston College. Her clinical internship was completed at Massachusetts Mental Health Center, Harvard Medical School. Since that time, she has taught and conducted psychotherapy in a number of hospitals and different university settings. She has now been working in Toronto for 18 years, and her time is split between her private practice and university lecturing in graduate psychology programs.
Lila Hakim Adjunct Faculty Dr. Lila Hakim is a Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist who works with individual adults, couples, and families. She is an owner and director at the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships (CFIR), a large private mental health practice with locations in Toronto and Ottawa. She is a supervisor in CFIR’s training program, which includes graduate students, as well as psychologists and psychotherapists pursuing licensing. She has been a lead in the development of the centre’s doctoral residency program. Dr. Hakim practices in the areas of trauma, personality, and family-building. She regularly presents at hospitals, family health teams, fertility clinics, and through the media. She has taught at York University and University of Guelph-Humber.