Emily Bernstein, PhD is a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a staff psychologist in the Center for OCD and Related Disorders (CORD) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Bernstein received her bachelor’s degree from Yale University and her PhD in clinical psychology from Harvard University. She completed her clinical internship at VA Boston Healthcare System and postdoctoral training at MGH/HMS and is a licensed psychologist in the state of Massachusetts. Dr. Bernstein’s research is focused on developing alternative and more scalable approaches for the prevention and treatment of OCD and related disorders, anxiety disorders, depression, and other emotional concerns. This includes exploring exercise and other lifestyle interventions and brief cognitive behavioral treatments, as well as leveraging digital tools to bring evidence-based therapy to more people. In this pursuit, she also aims to understand why psychological interventions work, and particularly transdiagnostic ones (or those targeting processes that cut across emotional disorders, like perseverative negative thinking), and to use these insights to increase the efficiency and impact of treatments. Dr. Bernstein was a 2022 recipient of the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) Alies Muskin Career Development Leadership Program Award and member of the Career Development Institute for Psychiatry.

Dr. Scharf is a behavioral neurologist and neuropsychiatric geneticist who works at the interface between neurology and psychiatry, employing statistical and molecular genetics techniques along with clinical research tools to investigate the etiology and pathogenesis of Tourette Syndrome (TS), OCD and related disorders as model neuropsychiatric illnesses. Clinically, Dr. Scharf directs the Neurology Tic Disorders Unit within the MGH Division of Movement Disorders, and is Co-Director of the MGH TAA National TS Center of Excellence in partnership with Dr. Sabine Wilhelm in MGH Psychiatry.

Berta J. Summers, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). Dr. Summers graduated valedictorian from North Carolina State University with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a minor in German, after which she spent two years conducting research at Duke University. She received her doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology at Florida State University and completed her clinical internship and post-doctoral training at MGH/HMS. Dr. Summers is a licensed clinical psychologist with a small private practice in downtown Boston. Her clinical and research expertise center around obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs) such as OCD and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Specifically, her work focuses on cognitive bias modification, problematic safety behaviors, ‘not just right’ experiences, and broad factors influencing etiology and treatment outcome across these illnesses. Further, Dr. Summers is invested in contributing to the current mobile health (mhealth) initiative and harnessing technology (e.g., cell phone applications, virtual reality) to improve the understanding and treatment of OCRDs. Dr. Summers has received the International OCD Foundation Young Investigator Research Award, along with supplemental internal funding from the Livingston Fellowship Award and the Foundations of Human Behavior Grant. Using pilot data from this funding, she is currently in the process of applying for a NIMH K23 Award testing the efficacy of virtual reality-assisted cognitive bias modification training for BDD.