Learn about our statewide team

TCMHCC brings together a statewide collaboration of leaders and experts in health-related institutions, medical schools, mental health and medical care, higher education, and the health and human services system, as directed by the Texas Legislature.

Learn more about our structure and goals.

Executive Committee

The Consortium’s work is guided by an Executive Committee that brings together state leadership, mental health and medical expertise, and system-level partners to ensure coordination, accountability, and alignment of our initiatives with statewide priorities.

Administrative and Implementation Team

Consortium administration is staffed by The University of Texas System, through a contract with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

David Lakey is Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Chief Medical Officer for The University of Texas System. He is also Senior Adviser to the President at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler. Dr. Lakey served as Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services from January 2007 to February 2015.

Currently he serves on the March of Dimes Board of Trustees and the Trust for America’s Health Board of Directors. He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry, graduating with high honors from Rose‐Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana, and received his medical degree with honors from Indiana University School of Medicine. Dr. Lakey was a resident in internal medicine and pediatric medicine and completed a fellowship in adult and pediatric infectious disease at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

Nagla Elerian is the Executive Director of the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. She was previously Director of Population Health Strategic Initiatives at the Office of Health Affairs at UT System. Prior to joining the UT System, Nagla was the Director of the Center for Health Statistics at the Department of State Health Services. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Zoology and a Master of Science in Health Statistics with a minor in Geography. In 1995, Nagla established the first electronic Birth Defects registry in Texas. In 1998, she established an evaluation program for Medicaid managed care where she initiated many improvements to the Medicaid managed care data and reporting. In 2000, she joined the NorthSTAR program where she initiated many reporting mechanisms to allow the use and sharing of data for program improvements. In 2007, Nagla joined the Decision Support unit at the Mental Health and Substance Abuse, where she developed through a multi-stakeholder collaboration the risk assessment tools to allow the state to evaluate and manage mental health centers and substance abuse providers using financial, access, quality and outcome indicators.

Ashley Steenberger is the CPAN PeriPAN Project Manager for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Before joining UT System, she oversaw a statewide early childhood focused program evaluation project. Ashley’s experience encompasses work in both the private and public health sector, including state and county health departments. She’s worked in clinical research coordination as well as on various maternal and child health projects including state-wide maternal health quality improvement initiatives and community and clinical based coalition efforts to improve birth outcomes. Ashley completed her Bachelor of Science in Public Health and Master of Public Health with a concentration in Community Health Education from Baylor University.

Lainie McCorkle is the Communications Manager for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Prior to joining the UT System, Lainie was the Senior Media Relations Officer for San Diego State University (SDSU) where she contributed to the development of a campus communications ecosystem, the approval and development of a new stadium and campus and the rebranding and 125th anniversary for the university’s multiple campuses. Additionally, Lainie lead a push for increased local, regional, national and international media mentions and subject-matter expert coverage for the university, initiatives, research, student success stories and faculty. Lainie earned her BA in Journalism from SDSU and has worked as a print and online journalist and live television news producer. She is a passionate storyteller with a commitment to making communications effective and accessible for all.

Alex Vlahodimitropoulos is the Financial and Contracts Manager for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Prior to joining the UT System, Alex was a Finance Manager at UT Austin Dell Medical School providing budgetary support and analysis to all divisions at the School. She has over 10 years of experience providing budget, financial, and performance management in higher education, local government, and state agencies. Alex has a Bachelor of Arts in Government from The University of Texas and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Texas State University.

Anissa Adams is the Communications Specialist for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. She was previously a Communications & Graphic Design Intern for TCMHCC. Prior to joining the UT System, Anissa was the Digital Media Specialist for a local museum where she developed and distributed communication material, created museum social media content, managed email marketing strategies, and created brand kits for promotional and print material for museum events. Anissa earned her Bachelor of Science in Digital Media Innovation with honors from Texas State University.

Claire Niday is the Workforce Project Manager for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Prior to joining the UT System, Claire was a Strategic Partnerships Advisor for the Texas Department of State Health Services where she facilitated cross-sector collaboration to advance public health practice and policy. She has more than 8 years of experience in public health program management, evaluation, and strategic planning. Her work has focused on statewide, systems-level approaches to improving child and adolescent health. Claire earned a Bachelor of Science in Kinesiology from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and a Master of Public Health from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Gabriela Garcia is the Program Coordinator for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC) responsible for program’s administrative operations. Before joining UT System, she spent 29 years working in Texas government in the areas of communications, event planning, and administrative support for executive offices. Her communications experience includes positions as agency spokesperson and managing community advisory committees for the I-35 and I-69 corridors at the Texas Department of Transportation and as press assistant with the Office of the Governor. In addition, experience in executive office support includes commission aide at the Texas Transportation Commission and executive assistant to the executive administrator at the Texas Water Development Board. A native of Laredo, Texas, she received a bachelor’s degree in advertising from The University of Texas at Austin.

Stephanie Ramos is the TCHATT Project Manager for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium. Prior to this role, Stephanie served as a HIV Technical Advisor at the US Agency for International Development in South Africa, where she led comprehensive HIV key populations programs. She has 9 years of global public health and development experience, primarily in program management, performance monitoring, and strategic planning for the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) programs in 10+ countries in Africa and Asia. Stephanie has a Master of Science in Global Health and Development from University College London and a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from University of California, Irvine.

Margaret Vaaler PhD is the Research Project Manager for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium (TCMHCC), coordinating the Consortium’s research, grants, evaluation, and publication work. She has many years of experience in health-related data management, research, and statistics in both the public and private sectors. Her background includes expertise in research design, data collection, qualitative and quantitative analysis methods, program evaluation, and manuscript development. She has expertise working with various health data sets, including Medicaid claims data, and public health surveillance data. She received her PhD in Sociology from The University of Texas at Austin.

Prisha Patel is a sophomore at The University of Texas at Austin studying Public Health.

UT System works with leading evaluation and communication organizations that support and extend the administrative work to measure program impact and expand outreach and engagement across the state. We are grateful for the expertise and support of these contracted organizations.

Internal Evaluation

Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health at The University of Texas at Austin
External Evaluation

The University of Texas Health Science Center Houston School of Public Health
Outreach and Communication

Center for Health Communication at The University of Texas at Austin

Centralized Operations Support Hub

The Centralized Operations Support Hub (COSH), based at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, provides technical infrastructure. COSH helps the 12 health-related institutions of higher education deliver and coordinate CPAN, PeriPAN, and TCHATT programs’ technology and systems to capture information needed to monitor progress and evaluate the programs.

Clinical Leadership

Laurel L. Williams, DO is an Associate Professor and Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). She is currently serving as Interim Medical Director for the Baylor Psychiatry Clinic. Dr. Williams has expertise in working with youth who self-injure as well as have chronic suicidality in addition to working with adolescents who are pregnant or post-partum and suffering with a mental health disorder. Dr. Williams received her B.S. in Psychobiology along with a Minor in Fine Arts at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA. She then completed her medical degree at University of North Texas, Texas School of Osteopathic Medicine in Ft. Worth Texas. Afterwards she completed both her adult and child and adolescent psychiatry training in the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Dr. Wakefield is a board-certified adult, child/adolescent, and forensic psychiatrist. She attended medical school at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas and a general psychiatry residency at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in Shreveport. Dr. Wakefield completed a fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry and an additional fellowship in forensic psychiatry also at LSUHealth before joining the faculty at Texas Tech University School of Medicine in 2014. She has served as the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Services and the Medical Director of Medical Ethics since 2016. She is currently chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Texas Tech University School of Medicine and is active in providing psychiatric diagnostic and treatment evaluations for families, for adolescents in the juvenile justice system, and for pregnant or post-partum mothers.

Dr. Brenner is Professor of Psychiatry, Distinguished Teaching Professor, Director of Adult Psychiatry Residency Training, and Vice Chair for Education in Psychiatry. He is a graduate of Emory University, Magna Cum Laude in Philosophy. He attended Harvard Medical School and then completed his psychiatry residency at McLean Hospital. Dr. Brenner’s clinical focus is in the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and personality disorders with a combination of psychoanalytic psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. His recent publications include “Is it time to rethink psychiatry residency training? Training general psychiatrists to be general psychiatrists” and “Staying grounded: Humility as an aim in psychiatry education and practice”, both published in Academic Psychiatry. Dr. Brenner previously served as the President of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training (AADPRT). Among his educational honors, he has been elected to the University of Texas Academy of Health Science Educators, and he received the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teacher Award and the Association for Academic Psychiatry’s Roberts Award for Inspirational Mentorship. A graduate of the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, Dr. Brenner is on the faculty of the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center. Dr. Brenner is Editor-in-Chief for the journal Academic Psychiatry and serves as Vice Chair of the Psychiatry Review Committee at the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME).

Steven R. Pliszka, M.D. is a Dielmann Distinguish Professor of the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. His research has focused on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and related disorders. Dr. Pliszka is the author of “Neuroscience for the Mental Health Clinician, 2nd ed.” and “Treating ADHD and Comorbid Disorders (Guilford Press). He has been very active in the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, authoring the academy’s practice parameters for the diagnosis and treatment of ADHD in 2007. Dr. Pliszka has an active clinical practice, caring for many children and adolescents with ADHD and other psychiatric disorders; he also serves as the attending psychiatrist for two residential facilities for children with severe behavioral and emotional disorders.