Meet the Team
Andrew Leuchter, MD
Andrew F. Leuchter, MD, is Professor and Executive Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Science, Director of the TMS Clinical and Research Program and the Neuromodulation Division, and Associate Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. A graduate of Stanford University, Dr. Leuchter earned his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He joined the UCLA faculty in 1986.
An internationally recognized expert on the treatment of mood disorders, Dr. Leuchter’s research focuses on the enhancement of treatment outcomes in depression. He is leading clinical trials to improve TMS treatment outcomes and develop novel technologies for treatment of depression and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), including synchronized Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (sTMS) and Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (TNS). He uses brain-imaging techniques, such as quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine brain function and predict which treatments are most likely to benefit individual patients.
Dr. Leuchter is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology as well as the American Board of Electroencephalography and Neurophysiology. He is a member of several professional organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the Clinical TMS Society, and the American Medical EEG Association. He has authored over 150 scientific articles on topics including neuromodulation for the treatment of depression, biomarkers to guide treatment of neuropsychiatric illness, and theories of antidepressant action. He also maintains an active clinical practice, specializing in consultation for and care of patients suffering from treatment-resistant depression.
For more information on Dr. Leuchter, please visit: www.andrewleuchter.com
David Krantz, MD, PhD
Dr. Krantz has been on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA for twenty years, and serves active roles as both a basic scientist and a clinical psychiatrist.
After completing an MD/PhD in the Medical Scientist Training Program at UCLA, he completed internship and residency in psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is board certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. After completing residency, he was then awarded a Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Fellowship for Physicians to investigate the regulation of vesicular neurotransmitter transporters in Robert Edwards’ laboratory at UCSF. He returned to UCLA in 2000.
Dr. Krantz’s primary clinical interest is the treatment of depression and he is a member of the Division of Neuromodulation within the Psychiatry department. He is also an attending physician in the UCLA Mood Disorders Clinic. His laboratory uses the model genetic organism Drosophila to study how neurotransmitter transporters influence synaptic transmission and behavior. He is also using Drosophila as a tool to investigate the mechanism of action of drugs used to treat depression and to investigate the fundamental principles that govern aminergic signaling.
Aaron Slan, MD
Hewa Artin, MD
Dr. Hewa Artin is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA and serves as an attending physician in the Division of Neuromodulation.
Dr. Artin is a board-certified psychiatrist and received his M.D. from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. He completed his psychiatry residency at UC San Diego, where he served as Chief Resident and received advanced training in interventional psychiatry.
Dr. Artin integrates his clinical practice with a passion for education and research, particularly in the areas of neuromodulation and psychedelics. He is dedicated to enhancing his patients’ quality of life through innovative neuropsychiatric treatments and contributing to the ongoing development of the field.
Margaret Distler, MD
Evan Hy Einstein, MD, MPH
Evan Hy Einstein, MD, MPH, is a Health Sciences Clinical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. He currently works in both the divisions of Neuromodulation and Adult Psychiatry. He joined the UCLA faculty in 2023 after working in one of the busiest psychiatric emergency departments in the country at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City.
His interests involve interventional approaches to treating psychiatric illness, as well as novel neuromodulation applications for treatment-resistant psychiatric and neurologic conditions. He has a particular interest in the use of neuromodulation for rehabilitation, and has published on the uses of TMS for neurorehabilitation after stroke and neurosurgery for oncologic lesions.
Dr. Einstein is a board-certified adult psychiatrist who received his M.D. degree from New York Medical College. He also completed a Masters in Public Health due to his interest in advocacy and mental health policy work.
Dr. Einstein completed his internship in adult psychiatry at Johns Hopkins. He completed the remainder of his adult psychiatry residency training at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine program. This included clinical experiences in multiple practice settings including public, private, state, and federal. Dr. Einstein has treated patients at NYU’s hospital system as well as Bellevue Hospital Center, the Manhattan VA Hospital, Kirby Forensic Hospital, and the NYU Wellness and Counseling Services.
Dr. Einstein has mentored medical students and residents and served as Chief Resident at NYU during his training. He has developed a compassionate, warm, holistic, and straight-forward approach to mental healthcare. He is committed to providing exceptional care to all patients.
Nathaniel Ginder, MD, PhD, is fellowship trained in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. He has interests in applications of TMS for children and adolescents as well as its application in addictive behaviors.
Ralph Koek, MD
Hanadi Oughli, MD
Thomas Strouse, MD
Dr. Tom Strouse is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the inaugural holder of the Maddie Katz Chair in Palliative Care Research and Education. He is also the Vice-Chair for Clinical Affairs in the David Geffen UCLA School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Strouse is the former Medical Director of Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA. He has been a faculty member at UCLA since he completed his residency training in 1991.
Early in his career, he was director of the UCLA Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry Service and worked closely with the UCLA Liver Transplant Program for over a decade. From 1994-2007, he served as Director of Cancer Pain Management and Supportive Oncology Services at the Outpatient Cancer Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he developed additional interest and skills in palliative medicine.
He has spent his career working with medically ill adults coping with psychiatric and physical aspects of catastrophic illness. Along with his current efforts to promote palliative care clinical research within the UCLA Health System, Dr. Strouse is a faculty member in the combined GLA/UCLA Palliative Medicine Fellowship, and is actively engaged with UCLA’s Operation Mend, a program for wounded US servicemen and women.
Dr. Strouse is a Fellow of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, a Fellow of the Academy of Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry, and an American Psychiatric Association Distinguished Fellow. He is board certified in general psychiatry, consultation/liaison psychiatry, and hospice/palliative medicine. From 2007-2018, Dr. Strouse served on American Board of Internal Medicine Test Committee responsible for writing the certifying exam for all North American physician candidates for the ABMS subspecialty of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. He chaired the exam committee from 2014-2018.
Dr. Strouse has published many peer reviewed papers and book chapters and sits on the editorial boards of a number of important journals. In 2017, he became an Associate Editor for the Journal of Palliative Medicine. He lectures throughout the country on topics related to pain, palliative care, psycho-oncology, and psychiatric aspects of medical illness. He was educated at Pomona College and the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.
Reza Tadayon-Nejad, MD, PhD
Dr. Tadayon-Nejad is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and Visiting Associate faculty in Neuroscience at California Institute of Technology.
His clinical focus is on treatment of refractory depression, OCD and comorbid OCD-Depression by using multimodal treatment options of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), advanced pharmacology and Exposure and Response Prevention therapy.
In collaboration with decision neuroscientists at Caltech, Dr. Tadayon-Nejad research explores the neurobehavioral and circuit mechanisms of abnormal decision-making in psychiatric disorders, particularly OCD, by using methods and concepts from computational neuroscience, neuroimaging (fMRI, DTI, EEG) and noninvasive neurostimulation (tDCS, TMS). His research is funded by NIMH and Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (NARSAD).
Scott Wilke, MD, PhD
Dr. Wilke is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA and is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. His research investigates the structure and function of neural circuits that underlie neuropsychiatric disorders. Dr. Wilke received his BS in neurobiology from the University of Washington and went on to earn his MD and PhD in neuroscience in the Medical Scientist Training Program at UC San Diego. He completed his doctoral thesis with Dr. Anirvan Ghosh, studying activity-dependent mechanisms regulating the assembly of hippocampal circuits in the developing brain. He went on to complete a residency in adult psychiatry and to do his postdoctoral research at UC San Francisco with Dr. Vikaas Sohal. The Wilke laboratory studies the prefrontal cortex, using molecular genetic tools to observe and alter activity in the brain during behavior. Ultimately his work seeks to understand the development and resolution of depressed states at the level of specific neural circuits. You can learn more about his research at www.wd2labs.org/wilke-lab.
Dr. Wilke is also an active clinician with expertise in interventional approaches to treat psychiatric conditions by modulating activity in the brain. He is an attending physician in the Neuromodulation Division of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and specializes in transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to treat refractory depression.