J. Martin Maldonado-Duran, M.D., is an infant, child, and adolescent psychiatrist and family therapist. He is Associate Professor of psychiatry at the Menninger Department of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine and works at the complex care service in the Texas ChildrensHospital. He is also an adjunct professor of infant psychopathology at Kansas State University and a clinical professor at the Kansas University School of Medicine. He was formerly a researcher at the Child and Family Center of the Menninger Clinic for several years. He edited the book, Infant and Toddler Mental Health(American Psychiatric Press) and has coedited or edited five additional books in Spanish on topics of child and infant mental health as well as the Clinical Handbook of Transcultural Infant Mental Health (Springer). Dr. Maldonado has written numerous papers and book chapters on topics of child development and psychopathology in several countries.
Andrés Jiménez-Gómez, M.D., is a developmental neurologist at the Department of Neurology of Baylor College of Medicine. His work is based at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Hollywood, FL. He has written numerous articles and papers on multiple aspects of child neurology, pediatrician education, and global health. He is a founding member of AREPA, an association of Latin American Pediatricians that fosters the education and exchange of pediatricians in the Americas. He is coeditor of the Clinical Handbook of Transcultural Infant Mental Health (Springer).
Kirti Saxena, M.D., is an Associate Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Menninger Department of Psychiatry, Baylor College of Medicine. As a postdoctoral research fellow at Stanford University, she was intrigued by how children/adolescents who presented with impulsive aggression were placed on multiple medications with no significant improvement in their impulsive aggression or other psychiatric symptoms. Many of these youths were given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. This clinical experience led to her interest in the systematic diagnoses and treatment of youth with disorders of maladaptive aggression. Dr. Saxena’s goal was to utilize and implement this knowledge from clinical trials into regular clinical practice. Upon completion of her postdoctoral training at Stanford, she joined UT Southwestern (UTSW) in Dallas, TX, to start a program for pediatric bipolar disorder. In her outpatient clinical practice, she assessed clinical outcomes of evidence-based diagnostic assessments and a psychopharmacological treatment algorithm. This clinical work led Dr. Saxena to realize the need for understanding neurobiological underpinnings of youths who presented with impulsivity, impulsive aggression and mood dysregulation. At UTSW, she studied white matter changes in youth with bipolar spectrum disorders in comparison to healthy controls. She conducts collaborative funded research with the University of Texas. This research collaboration uses clinical assessments, neuroimaging (structural, DTI, rsfMRI and task fMRI), EEG, neurocognitive measures and genetic biomarkers to study biological predictors in youths with bipolar disorder and those at high risk for the development of bipolar disorder. Dr. Saxena has also started a yoga program for high school students in Houston. She collaborates with the Institute for Spirituality and Health to do this project.
