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Board-Certified Adult and Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists
Ismatt Niazi, MD
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist
Dr. Ismatt Niazi graduated from Nebraska Wesleyan University with a major in biology and a minor in chemistry. After receiving his undergraduate degree, he attended the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s College of Medicine, earning his medical doctorate. During his time in medical school, Dr. Niazi was the president of the Psychiatry Interest Group.
Dr. Niazi then ventured to Washington DC, where he completed his Adult Psychiatry residency at Georgetown University. After spending time in the Midwest and the East Coast, it was only right that he moved across the country to complete his Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship at UCLA, where he served as chief fellow for the division. Dr. Niazi was also honored as the recipient of the UCLA Gertrude Rogers Greenblatt Award in Child Psychiatry, given to one fellow annually noted for their “deeply human commitment to children and families requiring psychiatric care”.
Dr. Niazi has experience treating a variety of psychiatric disorders through medication management and various psychotherapeutic interventions including psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, family therapy, parent management skills, and trauma informed psychotherapy. Dr. Niazi believes in a holistic, individualized treatment plan that aims to bolster an individual’s strengths while providing guided interventions to treat their current challenges.
Aside from his compassion to provide quality psychiatric care to children, adults, and their families, Dr. Niazi enjoys spending time with his family, watching NBA basketball, compiling musically diverse playlists, and collecting high end sneakers.
Elizabeth Casalegno, MD
Adult Psychiatrist
Dr. Casalegno graduated magna cum laude from the University of California, San Diego, with a degree in biochemistry and cell biology. During her time at UCSD, she also studied abroad in the Bordeaux region of France, immersing herself in French culture and language. Later, she pursued her medical studies at the University of California, Davis, where she ran a student-run clinic for low-income and minority patients and was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society.
Her interest in human behavior led her to complete her psychiatry residency training at UCLA where she served as the chief resident of the whole training program.
Dr. Casalegno specializes in treating various disorders with careful selection of psychotropic medications in combination with individual psychotherapy. She also has special interests in reproductive psychiatry, psychotic disorders, and applying psychodynamically-informed Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to aggressively treat mood and anxiety disorders, including OCD.
Dr. Casalegno is a member of the Volunteer Clinical Faculty at UCLA where she is an attending physician in the Psychosis Clinic. She is also a board member of the UCLA Psychiatric Clinical Faculty Association (PCFA).
Kristina Eipl, MD
Adult Psychiatrist
Dr. Eipl graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University with a degree in neuroscience. After college, she joined AmeriCorps and spent a year working at a free clinic in Rhode Island. She was also involved in research on Alzheimer’s Disease at Johns Hopkins and University of Chicago.
Dr. Eipl later attended medical school at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her interest in neuroscience combined with a passion for the humanistic side of medicine led her to pursue a psychiatry residency at NYU. There, she gained experience working with a widely diverse patient population across multiple locations, including Bellevue Hospital, NYU Langone Medical Center, the NYU Student Health Center and the Manhattan VA Hospital.
Dr. Eipl takes a collaborative and compassionate approach to both medication management and psychotherapy. She enjoys utilizing various types of psychotherapy to help patients improve their quality of life. She has experience with psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, prolonged exposure therapy, exposure and response prevention therapy, as well as interpersonal psychotherapy. She also practices thoughtful medication management when indicated. She enjoys working with students and young adults with anxiety and mood disorders and has advanced training in reproductive psychiatry.
Maya Smolarek, MD
Adult Psychiatrist
Dr. Smolarek graduated Phi Betta Kappa from UC Berkeley with a degree in Religious Studies. Although she pursued medical training to enter palliative care, she could not escape the allure of focusing on internal experience, meaning and personal narrative in the speciality of Psychiatry.
Dr. Smolarek graduated UCLA medical school with a leadership award and induction into the Gold Humanism Honor Society for her merits in compassionate care. During Psychiatry Residency at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute, she and a colleague co-founded the Women in Psychiatry group in order to further the education of trainees on issues related to women. She developed curricula for medical students and residents on sexual harassment during training and delivered talks on the subject at two national conventions. She continues her interest in teaching and mentorship as a Volunteer Clinical Faculty member at UCLA within the Interpersonal Therapy Clinic.
Dr. Smolarek is experienced in treating the gamut of mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders. She has specialty training in reproductive psychiatry (pertaining to menstrual, menopausal, and peripartum issues), geriatric psychiatry, PTSD, treatment resistant depression, and bipolar disorder. She brings a background study of mysticism and buddhism to her psychodynamic psychotherapy. Her holistic approach to care also includes interest in affect oriented and somatic therapy.
Melissa Garcia, AMFT
Registered Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Melissa graduated from California State University, Northridge with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Gender and Women Studies. During her time at CSUN, she volunteered with The CSUN Help Line where she was trained to take crisis calls and provide resources when needed. She joined Adelpha prior to her graduation from CSUN and worked as an office admin while pursuing her master’s degree in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy at Pepperdine University. During her master’s program, she also completed an MFT internship where she worked with adults and teens and provided weekly psychotherapy.
Melissa is dedicated to creating a safe and judgment-free environment and helping individuals find peace, heal their inner child and past traumas. She specializes in working with teens, adults, families, and couples. She utilizes a holistic and mindfulness approach while integrating different therapeutic modalities including CBT, Psychodynamic, Family Systems, The Gottman Method, and Somatic Therapy. She has experience in working with trauma, grief, anxiety and depression disorders, PTSD, mood disorders, and ADHD.
Melissa believes in providing quality mental health care to everyone while also being culturally competent. She is fluent in both English and Spanish. She takes pride in being a First-Generation Latina who went on to pursue higher education and hopes to continue creating a new path for her family and the future generations to come.
Melissa's AMFT registration number is AMFT132917. She is supervised by Elizabeth Casalegno, M.D.