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Faculty & Staff
Carla Marienfeld, M.D.
Director
Carla Marienfeld, M.D., is a board-certified addiction psychiatrist who specializes in treating individuals with substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions, such as anxiety and depression. She supports recovery in a harm-reduction approach that uses therapy, motivational interviewing, and medication-assisted treatment.An associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, her research looks at health outcomes for individuals with substance use disorders and involves monitoring the implementation of evidence-based practices in the treatment of substance use disorders. She has been highly involved in educating colleagues and trainees about addiction psychiatry and effective interventions, including buprenorphine treatment and motivational interviewing.
She is the codirector of PAC-TARC, an organization dedicated to innovative clinical research to determine the causes of alcohol, tobacco, and stimulant use disorders and to develop effective treatments to combat these conditions. She is also a member of many professional organizations, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Association of Addiction Psychiatry, and the American Psychiatric Association
Dr. Arthur Brody is a graduate of Vassar College, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the UCLA psychiatry residency (along with a research fellowship at UCLA). He is board certified in Addiction and General Psychiatry, and his clinical patient care and research focus on tobacco/nicotine dependence. In clinical contexts, he treats >100 patients per year with tobacco/nicotine use disorder. He is the medical director for smoking cessation programs at the VA San Diego Healthcare Systems, in which medication management and group/individual psychotherapies are used. As for research, his focus is brain imaging and treatment of tobacco use disorder, and he has studied the effects of addiction on positron emission tomography (PET) scanning outcomes, including studies of glucose metabolism, dopamine receptor availability, nicotinic acetylcholine receptor availability, and neuroinflammation. In these contexts, he has published approximately 100 papers and has been an investigator on >30 funded grants. Dr. Brody is also an Associate Editor for the journal Neuropsychopharmacology and a Senior Editor for the journal Addiction.
Associate Program Director
Dr. Joseph Carley is a Staff Psychiatrist in the VA San Diego Healthcare System for the Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program. He received his medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine.
Sarah Evans, M.D.
Dr. Sarah Evans completed her medical school training at the University of Texas Health Science Center. She completed her residency in family medicine at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center and a fellowship in hospice and palliative medicine at UCLA. Dr. Evans is a board-certified hospice and palliative care specialist who focuses on providing supportive care for patients with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses. She speaks Spanish fluently.
Waseem Khader, M.D.
Dr. Waseem Khader is an osteopathic physician who completed his medical school training at the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine. He completed his residency in Family Medicine at Marshall University. He is currently completing a fellowship and is board-certified in Addiction Medicine. Dr. Khader is passionate about treating the mind, body, and spirit, and he has a strong interest in addiction medicine.
Dan Lasoff, M.D.
Dr. Lasoff grew up outside of Washington, DC. He completed his undergraduate studies in economics at Northwestern University and then his medical degree at the University of Illinois College of Medicine in Peoria. After completing his residency at UC San Diego, he stayed on to complete a fellowship in medical toxicology. His academic interests are drugs of abuse and resuscitation.
Eve Lasswell, Psy.D.
Eve Lasswell is a licensed clinical psychologist who primarily treats adults with substance use disorders and co-morbid conditions. She also works with patients struggling to manage posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, role transitions, and interpersonal difficulties. She is part of our Addiction Recovery and Treatment (ART) program, which uses a harm-reduction approach to provide care for all stages of recovery from substance use disorders. She is also familiar with abstinence-based models and seeks to tailor treatment to the unique needs of her individual patients. Dr. Lasswell has experience with a number of patient populations, including those with ethnic backgrounds different from her own, LGBTQIA+ folks, and current/former members of the US military.
John (Javad) Fatollahi, M.D.
VA Training Site Director
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
Dr. John Fatollahi, MD is an attending Addiction Psychiatry Specialist at the VA San Diego Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program (ADTP). Dr. Fatollahi is board certified in Addiction Psychiatry and Psychiatry.
Nick Mellos, M.D.
Dr. Nick C. Mellos is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Voluntary at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and the site director for the UCSD Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at the Veteran Affairs San Diego (VASD) Healthcare System. He is an Alpha Omega Alpha graduate of New York Medical College and he completed his psychiatry residency and addiction psychiatry fellowship training at Yale. After completing his training he stayed at Yale becoming the Chief of Psychiatric Emergency Services at the West Haven Connecticut VA. Among his accomplishments at Yale was the creation of a novel alcohol detoxification risk stratification approach to improve the pairing of detoxification interventions and the acquisition of a $10 million grant that resulted in the construction of a new state-of-the-art Emergency Psychiatry facility. Among his accomplishments since arriving at VASD and at UCSD in 2014 include co-founding the UCSD addiction psychiatry fellowship, serving as the acting Chief of Psychiatry at VASD, successfully leading efforts to expand medication-assisted treatments for opioid use disorder, and leading efforts to vastly expand outpatient mental health and addiction services resulting in the acquisition of 60 new positions and the opening of two new outpatient mental health facilities within VASD. He serves as Section Chief leading a 72-member team providing outpatient mental health care delivery for over 12,000 unique veterans annually. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a recipient of the APA Nancy C A Roeske teaching award, and provides addiction training locally and internationally.
Gabriel Rodarte, M.D.
Dr. Gabriel Rodarte is the Behavioral Health Medical Director of Neighborhood Healthcare. He graduated from the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine in 2002. He specializes in Family Medicine and Psychiatry with an emphasis on addiction disorders. Dr. Rodarte is also affiliated with Riverside University Health System.
Joe Sepulveda, M.D.
Dr. Joe Sepulveda serves as Chief of Psychiatry at Family Health Centers of San Diego. He is also the physician champion in charge of overseeing the clinical planning, implementation, and ongoing development of the Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) Program. Dr. Sepulveda received his Bachelor of Science in physiological science from UCLA and his medical degree from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He then received training in clinical research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital prior to receiving his formal psychiatric training at Stanford University Hospital & Clinics. He is a Voluntary Assistant Clinical Professor at the UC San Diego Department of Psychiatry and is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Dr. Sepulveda is also a member of the American Psychiatric Association, the San Diego Psychiatric Society, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, and the California Society of Addiction Medicine. In addition, Dr. Sepulveda serves on a California advisory board where he assists with implementing successful practices and lessons learned in addiction medicine more broadly into the primary care setting. Further, he is the consulting psychiatrist for the University of Washington AIMS Center – Archstone Foundation Community Collaborative Care Partnership Geriatric Grant.
Maryam Soltani, M.D., Ph.D
Dr. Soltani is the Director of the Substance Abuse Recovery Treatment Program at the San Diego Veterans Medical Center in La Jolla California. She completed her residency training at UC San Diego in the Combined Family Medicine and Psychiatry program.