Department of Psychiatry

Welcome Dr. Aaron Sardell to Our Faculty
Profile
Dr. Aaron Sardell received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He received a Master’s degree in Counseling at Washington University in St. Louis and completed his Psy.D. degree in Clinical Psychology at Antioch University of New England in Keene, NH. Dr. Sardell has provided psychotherapy services to individuals, couples, and families in a variety of settings. He has been part of multidisciplinary teams in mental health clinics and in private group practices, and he has provided consultation in general medical, cancer, and pediatric clinics. Dr. Sardell served as the executive director of The Counseling Center in the Berkshires, in Pittsfield, MA. He served as an adjunct faculty member at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where he taught a course in abnormal psychology, and at Berkshire Community College, where he taught courses in introductory psychology.

Dr. Sardell will be playing key clinical roles expanding psychotherapy services in our Mood and Anxiety Clinic and at 10 Talcott Notch Road. He will also supervise psychology trainees and psychiatry residents.
Welcome Dr. Maggie Evans to Our Faculty
Profile
Dr. Evans received her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, cum laude, at the University of Rochester. She completed her Ph.D. degree in Clinical Psychology at the University of Vermont and then a postdoctoral fellowship at the VA Boston Healthcare System. Dr. Evans has provided care within VA settings, including the General Mental Health Clinic, the Primary Care Behavioral Health Clinic, and in the Urgent Care Clinic. At the Boston VA, she also led groups on Anger Management and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Dr. Evans has most recently been in practice at Kerzner Associates P.C., where she provided assessment and treatment services for individuals presenting with various psychological and behavioral health concerns. She has worked with adults who had a broad range of issues including: anxiety and mood disorders; PTSD and trauma-related symptoms; emotion dysregulation; relationship problems; alcohol, tobacco and substance problems; insomnia; chronic pain; and medical care adherence issues.

Dr. Evans will be playing key clinical roles expanding psychotherapy services in our Mood and Anxiety Clinic and at 10 Talcott Notch Road. She will also be supervising psychology trainees and psychiatry residents.
Welcome Dr. Eric Brueckner to Our Faculty
Profile
Dr. Eric Brueckner received his Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology and in Chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He received his medical degree from the Western University of Health Sciences/College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific and completed his Adult Psychiatry Residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, where he served as chief resident of the Outpatient Division. Following residency, Dr. Brueckner joined the Yale faculty. His time as outpatient chief at MUSC solidified his interest in treatment-refractory depression. As MUSC is known for ECT and TMS, Dr. Brueckner developed expertise in these modalities in addition to pharmacological and psychotherapeutic approaches to treat mood disorders. Dr. Bruckner ‘s Resident Quality Improvement Project involved improving and templating a suicide risk assessment within the EPIC electronic health record.

Dr. Brueckner will be playing key clinical roles expanding care for patients with refractory depression in the Mood and Anxiety Clinic and on the ECT service. He will also supervise residents and teach medical students at 10 Talcott Notch Road.
Welcome Dr. Michael Rayel to Our Faculty
Profile
Dr. Michael Rayel received his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of the Philippines, and his medical degree from the De La Salle Health Sciences Institute College of Medicine in the Philippines. Dr. Rayel completed his Adult Psychiatry Residency at New York Medical College in Valhalla, where he also received advanced training in psychodynamic psychotherapy at the NYMC Psychoanalytic Institute. Dr. Rayel completed a Geriatric Psychiatry Fellowship at NYU and a fellowship in Forensic and Correctional Psychiatry at Harvard. He also secured subspecialty certification in Psychosomatic Medicine. For nearly twenty years, Dr. Rayel served as a staff psychiatrist at the Dr. G.B. Cross Memorial Hospital in Clarenville, Newfoundland, Canada. There, in addition to seeing general psychiatry patients, he practiced as a geriatric psychiatrist at the Neuropsychiatry and Dementia Clinic.

Dr. Rayel will be a major asset here providing care for patients in the Mood and Anxiety Clinic and serving as medical director at Hartford Behavioral Health. He will also supervise residents and teach medical students in the Emergency Department and at the 10 Talcott Outpatient Clinic.
Welcome Dr. David FitzGerald to Our Faculty
Profile
Dr. David FitzGerald received his Bachelor of Arts in Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. He stayed at Notre Dame to complete his Master's degree in Psychology and a Ph.D. in an APA-accredited combined program of Counseling and Developmental Psychology. Dr. FitzGerald completed a Clinical Child/Pediatric Internship at the University of Pennsylvania. Upon completion of his training, Dr. FitzGerald joined the faculty as a clinical associate in medical psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University. During that time, he directed several assessment and treatment services, supervised independent evaluators across multi-site NIH studies, and served as director of research Operations at the Duke ADHD Program. He also held several secondary appointments in the Psychology Department, teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses. Dr. FitzGerald left Duke in 2010 to start his own private consulting practice in Apex, NC.

Dr. FitzGerald will join our child and adolescent psychiatry program expanding psychotherapy services in our Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Clinic.
Welcome Dr. Phelan Maruca-Sullivan to Our Faculty
Profile
Dr. Phelan Maruca-Sullivan received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Classics cum laude from Georgetown University and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine. She completed a Psychiatry residency at Yale, where she served as the chief resident for the program, education, and VA Inpatient Unit. In June 2018, Dr. Maruca-Sullivan completed a fellowship in Geriatric Psychiatry at Yale. In medical school, she received the Malamud Award, recognizing a graduating medical student "who best grasps the science of psychiatry and demonstrates a caring attitude toward patients." At Yale, she received the Ira Levine Award, recognizing a PGY2 psychiatry resident who best embodies qualities of clinical excellence, breadth of learning, and devotion to the care of patients with severe psychiatric illness. Dr. Maruca-Sullivan will be will be playing key clinical and educational roles on our Inpatient Service. She will also see patients in our Mood and Anxiety Clinic treating chronically mentally ill patients, older patients, and veterans on the Inpatient Service.