Irinel Chiriac M.D. is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, practicing in San Diego California. Originally from Romania, Dr. Chiriac earned her medical degree and a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology from the University of Medicine and Pharmacy “Carol Davila” in Bucharest. Dr. Chiriac completed a residency in psychiatry at the University of Chicago, where she also did her PhD studies in social psychology at the School of Social Service Administration. Dr. Chiriac is the owner of Discovery M.D. of California, and the Medical Director of the Neuropsychiatric Center, TMS and IOP services at Discovery Behavioral Healthcare in San Diego and attending psychiatrist at Casa Palmera Treatment Center in Del Mar, California. In addition to that, Dr. Chiriac is also the Medical Director of the Military Intensive Outpatient Trauma, Mood, Dual and Chemical Dependency Clinics at Aurora Behavioral Healthcare in San Diego, CA. A Board Member and owner of the Psychiatric Centers at San Diego until March of 2022, Dr. Chiriac also serves as Board member of the OPTUM Health Credentialing Committee for California. Dr. Chiriac founded the Military Program at Palomar Hospital in 2010, where she also functioned as the Medical Director of the Psychiatric Acute Unit. Prior to that, Dr. Chiriac was Medical Director at Boscobel Area Healthcare in Wisconsin, and the Chief Resident at the University of Chicago psychiatric program. Dr. Chiriac is certified as an Aviation Medical Examiner by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, is also certified SAMHSA provider for Buprenorphine prescription under DATA 2000 and is a certified TMS provider. Sharing her knowledge and experience is a priority for Dr. Chiriac, and previous teaching affiliations include the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago, the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Currently, Dr. Chiriac is part of faculty in proctoring Nurse Practitioner students at the University of San Diego, National University, and Walden University. Dr. Chiriac, a big believer in integrative medicine, is passionate in providing the best care to her patients, promoting the best evidence based clinical practices, besides medication management, TMS, medically assisted addiction treatments, in a continuous activism for psychoeducation and eliminating stigma of mental illness. What makes Dr. Chiriac prouder than any of her own professional accomplishments are her two sons, David and Alex. David is a Senior at the Carey School of Business at ASU graduating with a triple major in Finance, Economics and Advanced Data Analysis and is a successful athlete. Alex is a freshman in High School and an athlete preparing for his first national competitions. Dr. Chiriac and her husband Tony, enjoy traveling, spending time with friends, family, and with their amazing Irish Setter, Lucky.

Phillip Sand has worked in healthcare for more than 20 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Resurrection University, Chicago, a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and a master’s degree in clinical psychology from Illinois School of Professional Psychology, Chicago.

Mr. Sand has worked at all levels of patient care including inpatient, residential, and outpatient settings, and in clinical and operational roles including risk management, operations management, and as director of nursing.  He is currently the Director of Nursing of Discovery Behavioral Health in Milwaukee.

Dr. Rodney is the current medical director of New Hope Ranch in Manor, Texas. He earned his medical degree at Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City and completed a family medicine residency and obstetrics fellowship at John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas. He is board certified in both family and addiction medicine by the American Board of Medical Specialties. The author of numerous papers and chapters, he has been practicing family and addiction medicine for more than 10 years. Of note, he honorably served in the United States Navy Reserve for 9 years and attained the rank of lieutenant commander. Finally, he currently serves as an associate professor of family and addiction medicine at Meharry Medical College.

Dr. Brett Talbot, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and CCO/Co-founder at Videra Health, a digital healthcare technology company. Previously, Dr. Talbot was a Chief Clinical Officer, Chief Quality Officer, Executive Clinical Director, and Executive Director at behavioral healthcare organizations. He has worked clinically in several hospitals and residential care settings. Brett’s private practice has focused on behavioral health services, healthcare technology consultation, and he currently sits on several healthcare-related advisory boards. 

Dr. Talbot received his doctorate degree in psychology from the University of Houston, specializing in health service psychology. Brett is certified in both Lean Six Sigma Healthcare Management and Healthcare Project Management. Administratively, he has specialized in program development, performance and process improvement, quality assurance, and risk management. Clinically, he has focused on working with healthcare providers to develop systems and interventions for patients requiring specialized services. 

Brett’s research has focused on program design and effectiveness studies for behavioral healthcare, emphasizing the integration of specific interventions, progress monitoring, and long-term outcomes. Dr. Talbot has published various articles, been a guest editor for a scientific journal, has done editorial reviews for children’s healthcare books, and speaks nationally and internationally on many topics surrounding behavioral healthcare. 

Loren Larsen is the CEO and Co-founder of Videra Health, a company focused on helping measure and assess mental health using video and artificial intelligence. Larsen is an award-winning technology veteran with extensive engineering and research experience and over 25 issued US patents. Loren has spent the last two decades building teams of scientists and engineers that have built smart video technology used in the delivery of digital assets across many platform ecosystems, including video relay for the deaf and hard of hearing, internet television, and film. His work has been published in both the popular press and scientific journals.  

Loren previously worked as the Chief Technology Officer at HireVue, building its industry leading on-demand video job interviewing platform, which has since facilitated over 33 million interviews. There, he and his team also invented several new machine learning techniques for predicting, measuring, mitigating, and monitoring potential algorithmic bias to assess individual job competencies using verbal and non-verbal behavior.  

Loren is passionate about augmenting healthcare with machine learning to better connect patients to their providers in a scalable way and ensure critical patient data is extracted that would otherwise be missed in a purely human interaction. He is an expert at developing technology that accurately analyzes human language and emotion. Loren is also a co-founder of Nomi Health, a services and technology direct healthcare company. 

Loren earned his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from the University of Utah. He then attended Clemson University, earning a master’s degree in computer science.  

Philip Wang, M.D., Dr.Ph., directs the new Learning Health Systems Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH); the Center helps systems collect and integrate data on patients’ outcomes to continuously improve access, quality, equity, and outcomes from their care. Phil completed his undergraduate degree in biochemistry, medical school, masters and doctoral degrees in epidemiology, as well as psychiatry residency and chief residency, all at Harvard University. He was a faculty member at HMS and BWH until 2006, when he went to serve as Deputy Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and then Deputy Medical Director and Director of Research for the American Psychiatric Association (APA) where he oversaw the recent text revision of DSM. He returned to HMS in 2019 and served as Chair and Chief of Psychiatry, as well as Chief Science Officer at Cambridge Health Alliance. He is currently Co-PI of an NIMH P50 ALACRITY Center grant, as well as an NIMH T32 Fellowship Training grant through the Harvard-T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has also been awarded research grants from CMS, NIDA, AHRQ, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has served on several NIH Study Sections, as well as the FDA Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee, FDA Medical Devices Advisory Committee, and FDA Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee. 

Rachel Wood, PhD, Vice President of Learning Health Systems for Discovery Behavioral Health, is a licensed clinical psychologist in the behavioral health field for more than twenty years. During her time at Discovery, she has provided direct service in various levels of care including outpatient and intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programs, direct clinical care for adults and adolescents in PHP RTC and children in acute inpatient.  In her current position, Rachel’s focus is to leverage technology to gather evidence to improve care, access, outcomes, and long-term recovery.  Rachel implemented an app for alumni to provide ongoing education and support via connection with staff members and community members.  

Rachel’s programs increase the frequency and intensity of support following discharge affording real-time intervention for at risk alumni.  In March 2020 Dr. Wood launched Discovery’s mobile support apps allowing alumni and families to remain connected to program staff, receive educational content on mental health and offer and receive peer support following discharge.  The app is an extension of the in-person alumni programs offered by Discovery to provide a supportive community that fosters long-term recovery. Rachel received her Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology and Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, San Francisco.  She completed the 1998 International Scholars Program at Imperial College London, England. Her dissertation was presented at the International Conference for the Psychology of Science & Technology.  

John Peloquin is a visionary in revolutionizing measurement-based care, setting a new standard for relapse prevention at Discovery so more patients can experience meaningful, sustained recovery. John has served as president and CEO since the company’s inception in 2018, when he facilitated the merger of Cliffside Malibu addiction centers with the Center for Discovery to form Discovery Behavioral Health. Under his leadership, Discovery has become a national leader in leveraging its growing database of quantified patient experiences to deliver tailored treatment that leads to greater patient success. 

With John’s focus on the total journey of care, Discovery developed a first-of-its-kind tracking and assessment platform, Discovery365™, that provides patient support and monitoring beyond treatment to reduce the risk of relapse. 

John’s experience in behavioral healthcare spans decades. He served as CEO of Cliffside Malibu, a network of addiction recovery centers ahead of the merger. He also led Acadia Healthcare’s national outpatient division, which nearly doubled in size under his leadership; chief administrative officer/director of operations at Vital Imaging and division president of CRC Health Group, one of the nation’s largest behavioral healthcare providers. 

John leadership challenges the industry’s unacceptably high relapse standards to provide care that more often leads to the outcome that truly matters: a live well-lived. 

Dr. Matthew Ruble is advancing behavioral health care by harnessing the power – and data – from tens of thousands of patient experiences to drive innovation in treatment and ultimately improve outcomes and lives.

As chief medical officer, Dr. Ruble is dedicated to education/training, research and collaboration among payers and providers. His collaboration with Mass General Brigham led to external, academic validation of Discovery’s clinical outcomes and national leadership in setting a new standard for measurement-based care. 

 Dr. Ruble works to elevate the needs of patients, providers and payers by decreasing barriers to care and prioritizing value while ensuring clinical quality.

 Prior to joining Discovery, he served as national medical director at Human and was part of the team that reviewed and advised Humana leadership on all behavioral health technology/innovations for potential investment/acquisition and implementation. 

 A former faculty member of Harvard Medical School for nearly 20 years, Dr. Ruble also served as the Director of Behavioral Health and the Associate Training Director for the Adult Psychiatry residency training program at the Cambridge Health Alliance.

 Dr. Ruble earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. He completed an Infectious Disease research Fellowship at Brown University’s School of Medicine before completing his MD at the Carver School of Medicine at the University of Iowa. He then attended Harvard Medical School to intern at the Department of Medicine and to complete his residency at the Department of Psychiatry. Dr. Ruble became Chief Resident of Psychopharmacology at Cambridge Health Alliance. He then completed his Fellowship in Medical Education at the Academy of Harvard Medical School.