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Jim Brown

MA, LCMHC, LCAS

Executive Director

Child, Adolescent & Young Adult Center – Charlotte, NC

Jim Brown, MA, LCMHC, LCAS earned his Master of Arts degree in Counseling at the University of North Carolina in 1997. He has held his Licensed Professional Counselor (LCMHC) credential since 1999 and his Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialist (LCAS) credential since 2009. Jim has experience directing, counseling, and working with individuals and staff in detox, residential, inpatient hospital, and outpatient/partial hospitalization settings. Jim specializes in addiction and mood disorder treatment and has been in behavioral health management, overseeing multidisciplinary teams, for the past 17 years. Jim’s passion is client recovery, clinical customer service, and employee engagement.

Jim and his wife have been married for 20 years and have two children, a 14-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter. Jim’s current interests include: hanging out with his family, reading, traveling, camping, hiking, and attending concerts and music festivals.

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Marlo Sell

MS, LCMHC

Patient Navigation Manager

Child & Adolescent Hospital – Durham, NC

Marlo is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in North Carolina. She is an intensively training DBT therapist through The Linehan Institute. She started her career with Veritas in 2018 in the Intake and Admissions Department and moved into the Patient Navigation Manager role in 2020. Marlo has experience providing individual and group therapy for patients of all backgrounds in outpatient settings.

Marlo enjoys seeing the transformation that occurs in patients from the beginning of their journey to completion. She takes a holistic approach to treatment and believes that everyone deserves their recovery to be in a safe, non-judgmental, and supportive environment.

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Emerald Smith

LPC, ATR

Clinical Director

Child, Adolescent & Young Adult Center – Charlotte, NC

Emerald Smith is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Registered Art Therapist with over 15 years of Mental Health experience.  She attended Earlham College, where she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and Studio Art. Emerald earned her Masters in Art Therapy and Counseling at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has focused the past 6 years of her work on exclusively working with families and individuals living with an eating disorder in Inpatient, Residential and Partial Hospitalization levels of care. She has additional training in both Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. Emerald believes in the power of creativity and enjoys witnessing the strength and resiliency of patients as they navigate recovery.

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Amanda Barnhardt

LCSW, CCS

Clinical Director

Child & Adolescent Hospital – Durham, NC

Amanda Barnhardt is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified Clinical Supervisor who specializes in mental health.  She earned her master’s degree in Social Work at UNC Greensboro.  She also has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Women’s Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill.  Amanda has over ten years of experience working in the adult inpatient psychiatric setting, providing individual, group and family therapy.  She has also practiced outpatient psychotherapy with children and families.

Amanda received her Certification in Clinical Supervision in 2013 from the National Association of Social Workers and has provided clinical supervision to provisionally licensed clinicians across several behavioral health settings, including intensive In-home services, inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, child welfare, and intake clinicians at Veritas Collaborative.

Amanda is passionate about creative, client-centered interventions informed by evidenced-based psychotherapy modalities such as DBT, CBT, and ACT.

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Sara Hofmeier

MS, LCMHCS, CEDS-S

Executive Director

Child & Adolescent Hospital – Durham, NC

Sara Hofmeier is a Licensed Professional Counselor, having earned her Master’s in Counseling from UNC Greensboro. Sara has been working with patients with eating disorders since 2007 and comes to Veritas from the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders where she was the program’s Clinical Director and an Assistant Professor. Sara has experience providing individual, group, and family therapy for patients with eating disorders across multiple levels of care including inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient treatment settings. In addition to her experience in direct patient care, Sara has extensive experience providing supervision and training to new therapists and particularly enjoys providing supervision around the care and treatment of patients with eating disorders.

Sara strongly believes in an evidence informed approach to best practice treatment and pulls from several therapeutic approaches in her work with patients and families with eating disorders, including Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and the Maudsley model of Family Based Therapy. Sara also believes in a collaborative and strengths-based approach to treatment and particularly enjoys helping patients find new ways to describe their experiences and struggles in a non-judgmental manner as they move toward recovery.

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Mem Wood

MS, LCMHC

Clinical Director

Adult Hospital – Durham, NC

Mem Wood, MS, LCMHC is a psychotherapist at Veritas Collaborative. She attended New College of Florida, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature and Gender Studies. Mem earned her Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Florida International University. Mem completed her training at the Renfrew Center of South Florida, a residential treatment center for eating disorders. Prior to her transition to Veritas, Mem worked most recently as Program Manager at the Renfrew Center of South Florida, while also serving as manager of the Aftercare Department and a primary therapist for individuals with anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and other eating disorder diagnoses at the residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient levels of care.

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Eliza Russ

MBA, MSW, LCSW, CEDS-S

Executive Director

Adult Hospital – Durham, NC

Eliza Russ, MBA, MSW, LCSW, CEDS-S, earned her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN, and a master’s degree in Social Work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has experience providing individual, family, and group therapy for patients with eating disorders across multiple levels of care, most recently serving the outpatient population in a private practice. During that time, she also obtained her master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In addition to her training as a psychotherapist, Eliza has experience providing clinical supervision to therapists and interns and is passionate about supporting the professional growth of emerging colleagues. She earned her Clinical Supervision Certification through NASW-NC and is an approved supervisor through the International Association of Eating Disorder Professionals.

Eliza strongly believes in providing evidence-based care that is individualized to meet the needs of the patient and family. She strives to create a safe, nonjudgmental space where clients can flourish. She approaches therapy with a sense of curiosity to help clients explore behavior patterns, gain insight, and develop potential solutions to facilitate changes that lead to a more peaceful “meaning-filled” life.

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Jenn Zambo

MS, RDN, LDN, CEDS, CHES

Manager of Nutrition Services

Child & Adolescent Hospital – Durham, NC

Jenn Zambo, MS, RDN, LDN, CEDS, CHES, attended the University of Connecticut where she completed the Coordinated Dietetics Program to earn her Bachelor of Science in Dietetics. Jenn then went on to complete her Master of Science in Health Promotion, with a focus on health education. Jenn started her eating disorder career at the University of Connecticut Student Health Services, where she counseled students with eating disorders and advised a peer education group promoting eating disorder awareness. Prior to her transition to Veritas, Jenn worked as an eating disorder dietitian for an inpatient program affiliated with Walden Behavioral Care treating adults and adolescents. Jenn has since worked as a Registered Dietitian in inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient levels of care.

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Preeti Matkins

MD, FAAP, FSAHM

Medical Director

Child, Adolescent & Young Adult Center – Charlotte, NC

Dr. Preeti Matkins is a board-certified pediatrician with 25 years of experience, eight of which have been spent providing care for children and young adults impacted by eating disorders.

Dr. Matkins has earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed medical school at the top-ranked UNC School of Medicine. She is a member of the Academic Pediatric Association and a fellow of the Society of Adolescent Health and Medicine and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Prior to joining Veritas, Dr. Matkins was the medical director at Teen Health Connection, the director of adolescent medicine and the director of child maltreatment at Levine Children’s Hospital, the medical director for The Center for Disordered Eating at Teen Health Connection and the assistant program director of the Pediatrics Residency as well as the director of team nurseries at Carolinas Medical Center. She also served as a professor of pediatrics at Carolinas Medical Center and remains on staff as a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at the UNC School of Medicine.

When Dr. Matkins is not at Veritas, you may find this book-loving Charlotte native rooting for the Carolina Tar Heels or the Davidson Wildcats (her husband’s alma mater) with her two adult (and two canine) children or planning her next travel adventure.

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Rollyn Ornstein

MD

Medical Director

Child & Adolescent Hospital – Durham, NC

Dr. Ornstein is a board-certified Adolescent Medicine specialist with over 20 years of experience treating patients with eating disorders.

Dr. Ornstein grew up in New York City and graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a BS degree in Psychology. She headed back to New York for medical school, where she earned her MD from New York University School of Medicine. She did her Pediatrics residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Babies and Children’s Hospital in New York. Dr. Ornstein then went on to do a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at Schneider Children’s Hospital (now Cohen Children’s Hospital), part of Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, NY, where she then worked as an attending physician in the Division of Adolescent Medicine from 2002-2008.  Dr. Ornstein moved to Pennsylvania in 2008 and joined the Division of Adolescent Medicine and Eating Disorders at the Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital.  She was appointed interim division chief in January 2015, and served in this role through 2017.  She was promoted to Professor of Pediatrics at Penn State College of Medicine, where she was involved in teaching both medical students and residents. She was also made Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and was involved in teaching multidisciplinary Adolescent Health fellows at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Dr. Ornstein is widely published in the field of eating disorders, and her research interests include child and adolescent eating disorders, with an emphasis on Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, outcomes of eating disorders treatment, and the use of saliva as a possible biomarker in anorexia nervosa.  She has presented research as well as workshops at both the International Conference on Eating Disorders and the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, where she has also served on scientific program planning committees. She is a Fellow of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine.  Dr. Ornstein has been named in the Best Doctors in America database annually since 2009.

Dr. Ornstein has recently relocated to North Carolina with her husband and two daughters and is excited to join Veritas Collaborative as the Medical Director of the Child and Adolescent Hospital in Durham.

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Elysse Miller

MPH, RD, LDN, CEDRD

Manager, Nutrition Services

Adult Hospital – Durham, NC

Elysse Thebner Miller, MPH, RD, LDN is a Registered Dietitian (RD) and Licensed Dietitian/Nutritionist (LDN) at Veritas Collaborative. She attended Ithaca College where she completed her Bachelors of Science degree in Health Sciences/Pre-Medical Studies with an emphasis in Nutrition, with minors in Anthropology and Art. Elysse attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health where she completed her Masters in Public Health with a focus on Nutrition. Elysse completed her Dietetic Internship at UNC Center for Excellence of Eating Disorders and Duke University. She most recently worked as a Registered Dietitian at UNC CEED clinic as inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient dietitian as well as research dietitian in trials for anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder.

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Joseph Crozier

MD, PhD

Medical Director

Adult Hospital – Durham, NC

Before joining the Veritas team in 2017, Joe held faculty positions in the medical schools at Duke University and the University of North Carolina (UNC). While at UNC Joe was the medical director of the UNC Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders where he treated patients at the inpatient, partial hospitalization, and outpatient levels of care as well as participated in research examining new treatment approaches to patients with eating disorders.

His experience working with patients in extreme physical and emotional distress and walking with them through the recovery process has made him a passionate advocate for the care of patients with eating disorders. Joe brings a unique approach to his clinical work that he ascribes to his training as both a psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist. He is board certified in General as well as Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and is a licensed clinical psychologist.

Consistent with his training in psychiatry and psychology, Joe approaches his patients with a deep appreciation for the connection between mind and body and the ways in which eating disorders affect individuals across these domains. He approaches his patients with an understanding that recovering from an eating disorder requires a sustained effort over time through inevitable emotional and physical struggles. He believes that patients can overcome these struggles through multidisciplinary treatment that addresses patterns of thoughts and feelings that drive eating disordered behaviors, and by helping patients to connect their recovery efforts with their deeply held values and life goals.

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