Our Team

Allison G. Dempsey, PhD

Program Director
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Psychologist

Dr. Dempsey has over 10 years of experience working in inpatient and outpatient settings with high-risk infants, their families, and women with high-risk pregnancies. She previously served as Director of Behavioral Health Programs for the Colorado Fetal Care Center and NICU at Children’s Hospital Colorado and currently serves as the Co-Chair of the National Network of NICU Psychologists and the Co-Chair of the Early Childhood Special Interest Group for the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. Her clinical focus is on providing services to medically complex infants and their families from pregnancy through early childhood. In the Connections Program she provides services in the inpatient NICU and Labor and Delivery units at University of Colorado Hospital and individual and group psychotherapy in the outpatient setting. Her research focuses on individual, family, and systems level factors that affect an infant’s neurodevelopment, health, and family wellness. She is particularly interested in intervention approaches that can be implemented in the perinatal and neonatal periods.

Allison Dempsey, PhD

Jennifer J. Paul, PhD

Associate Director of Clinical Services
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry
Psychologist

Dr. Paul specializes in providing mental health services to women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and their babies. In the Connections Program she provides services in the inpatient NICU and Labor and Delivery units at University of Colorado Hospital and individual and group psychotherapy in the outpatient setting. She is core faculty with the Harris Program in Child Development and Infant Mental Health at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and has been the Clinical Director of the Healthy Expectations Perinatal Mental Health Program at Children's Hospital Colorado since 2009, providing psychiatric evaluation and group therapeutic support for mothers experiencing perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and their babies. Dr. Paul has previous experience as the Director of Infant Mental Health Services at the Baby Haven and Haven Mother’s House supporting mothers in recovery from substance addiction along with their very young children. She also served as the Clinical Coordinator of the Kempe Therapeutic Preschool for nearly a decade.

Jennifer Paul, PhD

Jack Dempsey, PhD

Associate Director of Program Evaluation
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry
Psychologist

Dr. Dempsey specializes in working with young children with developmental and behavioral challenges and their parents. In the Connections Program, he provides clinical services to support parents of young children (ages 18 months and over) born with medical complications. His services involve parent management training with a focus on managing challenging behaviors, including tantrums, sleep difficulties, and anxiety. He also facilitates the group for fathers/partners for the Connections Program. Dr. Dempsey also serves as the Chair of the Psychology Speciation Interest Group for the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. His research focuses on improving access to evidence-based services for parents of children with developmental and behavioral challenges in early childhood.

Jack Dempsey, PhD

Sarah Nagle-Yang, MD

Visiting Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Psychiatrist

Dr. Nagle-Yang is a specialist in the field of Reproductive Psychiatry and the medical director of the Women's Behavioral Health and Wellness Service. On the national level, she has worked for the past 6 years as the Vice-Chair of the National Task Force for Women’s Reproductive Mental Health, which most recently launched the web-based National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry, designed to allow residency programs without faculty expertise in this area to implement an interactive and comprehensive curriculum. Dr. Nagle-Yang is currently the secretary-treasurer of the North American Society for Psychosocial Ob/Gyn (NASPOG) and a member of the women’s mental health special interest group of the Academy of Consult-Liaison Psychiatry. She provides psychiatry services to women and partners in the Connections Program.

Sarah Nagle-Yang, MD

Jessalyn Kelleher, PsyD

Senior Instructor of Psychiatry
Psychologist

Dr. Kelleher specializes in infant mental health, providing services to high-risk infants and families in medical settings, and providing psychotherapy services for women and partners with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and coping with parenting a baby with medical complications. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship in the Harris Infant Mental Health Program at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, which included specialty training in working with families in the NICU and women with long hospital stays due to pregnancy complications. As a psychologist in the Connections Program, Dr. Kelleher provides services to women, infants, and families in the L&D Unit and the NICU at University of Colorado Hospital and provides outpatient services, including individual and group psychotherapy to women and parents.  She also facilitates the loss groups for families who have experienced pregnancy loss in the second or third trimester and for families who have experienced a loss of a baby in the neonatal period.

Stephanie Takamatsu, PhD

Senior Instructor of Psychiatry
Psychologist

Dr. Takamatsu specializes in working with infants and young children with medical conditions and other developmental and behavioral conditions and their families. She completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Colorado specializing in neurodevelopmental disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorder. As a psychologist in the Connections Program, Dr. Takamatsu provides services to infants and families in the NICU at University of Colorado Hospital and provides outpatient services, including individual and group psychotherapy to women and parents, parent management training, and developmental assessments. She completed her internship at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and fellowship at. Stephanie received her doctorate from the University of Missouri- Columbia in Counseling Psychology.

Stephanie Takamatsu, PhD