Thomas J. Pearsall, Jr., Fellows

2026-2027 Pearsall Fellows – Year 1

Devan Baijal, DO

Dr. Devan Baijal is currently a Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellow at Atrium Health-Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC, where he also completed his Adult Psychiatry training. Dr. Baijal went on to attend medical school at Kansas City University in Joplin, MO, where he founded multiple mental health organizations, including a peer support group and a burnout prevention task force. He is actively involved in teaching medical students from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. He was awarded the “Excellence in Medical Student Teaching Resident Award” for the psychiatry clerkship during the 2024-2025 academic year and the 2026 “Dr. Earl Short Award for Outstanding Psychiatry Resident” for excellence in the area of psychiatric education. Dr. Baijal is passionate about Child, Adolescent, and College Mental Health, with a particular specialization in sports psychiatry and preventative mental health. He looks forward to expanding his understanding of psychoanalysis and psychodynamic therapy through the Pearsall Fellowship, with hopes of integrating these skills into his future practice.

Ruth Bishop, MD, MBA

Dr. Bishop is a fifth-year combined internal medicine and psychiatry resident at the Medical University of South Carolina. She completed her undergraduate degree from the University of Alabama and medical degree from the University of Michigan. She is interested in improving health outcomes for individuals with SMI, reducing the criminalization of mental illness, and developing integrated and reverse-integrated models of behavioral health and primary care delivery for populations experiencing SMI/housing instability. During the Pearsall Fellowship, she hopes to learn more about psychoanalytic theory to better understand and care for patients with complex medical and psychiatric illness.

Alicia Ciringione, MD, MS

Dr. Ciringione is a third-year psychiatry resident at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, SC. She first became interested in psychiatry and psychotherapy while attending medical school at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY, in part because of the opportunity to listen to people’s unique stories. She is interested in deepening her knowledge of the psychoanalytic framework and hopes to integrate this approach in her care of patients. She is also interested in child and adolescent psychiatry and medical education.

Abdelrhman “Rooma” Elnasseh, MD

Dr. Abdelrhman “Rooma” Elnasseh is a fourth-year psychiatry resident at Duke University. He studied philosophy at Virginia Commonwealth University and attended medical school at The George Washington University. His professional interests include global mental health and psychotherapy, particularly psychodynamic, psychoanalytic, and existential approaches. In his free time, he enjoys practicing mixed martial arts (Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai), playing soccer, hiking, and listening to podcasts on philosophy, religion, spirituality, and psychology. Through the Pearsall Fellowship, he looks forward to deepening his understanding of psychoanalysis and integrating psychoanalytic principles into his clinical practice.

Benjamin George, MD

Dr. George is a third-year psychiatry resident at Cape Fear Valley Hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He completed his degree in chemistry at Brigham Young University followed by his medical training at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He is looking forward to building a broad foundation in psychotherapy through the Pearsall Fellowship to aid him in providing comprehensive care for his patients.

Kelly “Chase” Greeson, MD, MPH

Dr. Greeson is a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she also completed her general psychiatry residency. She earned her undergraduate degree in neurobiology from North Carolina State University and her medical degree, along with a Master of Public Health, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her clinical interests include child and adolescent psychiatry, trauma-informed care, forensic psychiatry, underserved populations, and psychodynamic therapy. As a Pearsall Fellow, Dr. Greeson aims to incorporate a psychoanalytic perspective into her clinical work to enhance thoughtful assessment and patient centered treatment.

Abdelrahman Ibrahim, MBBS, MMSc

Dr. Ibrahim is a fourth-year psychiatry resident at Duke University on the Physician-Scientist Track and Duke Psychotherapy Track. Originally from Cairo, Egypt, he earned his medical degree at Ain Shams University. Later, he completed a Master of Medical Sciences in Clinical Investigation at Harvard Medical School, where his research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital examined the social determinants of young adult mental health. His clinical and scholarly interests center on psychodynamic and object relations theory, and he leads a research program on Islamic psycho-spiritual constructs and their role in psychiatric care. Through the Pearsall Fellowship, Dr. Ibrahim looks forward to deepening his grounding in psychoanalytic theory and practice and to joining a community of psychodynamic thinkers.

Michelle Qiu, MD

Dr. Michelle Qiu is a third year psychiatry resident at Prisma Health/University of South Carolina, where she serves as the Academic Chief. She is originally from Guizhou, China and was raised in Fayetteville, AR. She studied English and Neuroscience at Columbia University prior to completing medical school at Wake Forest University. Her psychiatry interests include women’s mental health and working with minority populations. She is eager to develop her understanding of psychodynamic and psychoanalytic theory through the Pearsall fellowship.

Erin Semple, MD, PhD

Dr. Semple is an early career faculty member with Wake Forest University Charlotte and an outpatient psychiatrist with Advocate Health. She completed her undergraduate degree in psychology at Miami University. Through the combined MD, PhD program at the University of Toledo, she engaged in research exploring the role of melanocortins in sexual behavior while earning her medical degree. During her psychiatry residency at the University of Michigan, she engaged in a psychodynamic psychotherapy fellowship through the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute, developing a specific interest in the intersection between therapy and medication management. As an attending, she has taken on the role of Director of Psychotherapy Training for the Sandra and Leon Levine Psychiatry Residency program. She is eager to further her training in psychoanalysis and engage with like-minded individuals in the region through the Pearsall Fellowship.

Robert Sickler, MD

Dr. Sickler is a fourth-year psychiatry resident at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Princeton University before earning his medical degree at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth in Houston. His clinical interests include general adult psychiatry, psychodynamic psychotherapy, and the intersection of philosophy and psychiatry. Through the Pearsall Fellowship, Dr. Sickler looks forward to deepening his foundation in analytic theory and technique in service of his patients.

Katarina Swaim, MD, MPH

Dr. Swaim is a third-year psychiatry resident at UNC. She was born in Bratislava, Slovakia and raised in North Carolina, where she completed her Bachelor’s in Psychology, a Master’s degree in Public Health with a concentration in Population Health for Clinicians, and medical studies at UNC Chapel Hill. Her interests include child and adolescent psychiatry, increasing equitable access to mental health care, and applying a psychodynamic approach across the lifespan. Dr. Swaim is grateful for the opportunities presented by the Pearsall Fellowship, by which she hopes to become a more discerning and nuanced clinician.

2026-2027 Pearsall Fellows – Year 2

Elise Abken, MD

Dr. Abken completed general psychiatry residency and fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, where she will remain as faculty. She studied history at Haverford College and medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine prior to returning to North Carolina for training. She looks forward to continuing to develop her understanding and practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy through the Pearsall fellowship.

Gabriel Brotzman, DO

Dr. Brotzman is a staff psychiatrist at Cape Fear Valley Hospital in Fayetteville, NC. After studying English at Brown University, he returned to North Carolina to complete his medical training. His interests include the philosophy of psychiatry, psychotic disorders, and psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Yi Ting Liu, MD

Dr. Liu is a fourth-year psychiatry chief resident at the Medical University of South Carolina. She completed both her undergraduate studies and her medical degree at the University of Virginia. Originally from Taiwan and raised in the U.S., she was drawn to psychiatry after witnessing the stark contrast in how mental illness is perceived across cultures. Her clinical interests include working with underserved communities, consult-liaison psychiatry, and reproductive psychiatry. Through the Pearsall Fellowship, Dr. Liu looks forward to integrating a psychodynamic approach to more meaningfully connect with her patients.

Thomas Mayer, MD

Dr. Mayer is a graduate of the general psychiatry and child & adolescent psychiatry training at UNC. He works in private practice with HRC in Chapel Hill and Raleigh. He enjoys working with patients of all ages and looks forward to developing skills in psychodynamic therapy.

Joyce A. Meza Venegas, MD

Dr. Joyce Meza is a fourth-year resident in the Duke Psychiatry Residency Training Program. Originally from Ecuador, she completed medical school there before pursuing her medical internship in Mexico City and a year of social service in the Galápagos Islands. Prior to residency, she spent a year as a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Dr. Meza’s clinical interests include treatment-resistant depression, global mental health, and psychoanalysis. During her residency at Duke, she joined the Duke Psychotherapy Track and most recently completed her first year of psychoanalytic training through the PCC, where she developed a growing appreciation for psychoanalytic thinking and its application to clinical practice. She looks forward to continuing her psychoanalytic education and deepening her understanding of analytic theory and technique as she works toward integrating these perspectives into compassionate, thoughtful, and culturally informed patient care.

Joseph Muñoz Dayaa, MD, MS

Dr. Muñoz Dayaa is a child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at the University of North Carolina. He completed psychiatry residency at University of North Carolina. He was raised between Massachusetts and Florida prior to moving to North Carolina for college. He completed his undergraduate studies at UNC Chapel Hill in Biology, Chemistry, and English; graduate studies at Columbia University in Narrative Medicine; and medical school at UNC Chapel Hill. His interests in psychiatry span child and adolescent psychiatry, women’s and reproductive psychiatry, and psychodynamic as well as narrative approaches to caring for a person across the lifespan.