Team
Team
Amit Baumel, Ph.D.
Head of Lab
Prof. Amit Baumel joined the Department of Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa in October 2017. He completed his M.A. in Clinical Child Psychology and Ph.D. at Bar-Ilan University. He is a licensed clinical psychologist, and completed his clinical internship at Ramat Chen Mental Health Center where he treated children, parents, and adults. Amit completed his post-doctoral training at Psychiatry Research within The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research under the supervision of Dr. John M. Kane, and then became a faculty member in Zucker School of Medicine at Northwell-Hofstra, NY.
Amit has more than 15 years of experience in design, research and development of user centered technological products, especially within the mental health domain. Besides clinical and research record Amit has hands on experience in the Hitech industry, in product/user experience design and big data analysis.
Mayan Cohen,
Ph.D. Student
Mayan’s Ph.D. research project is conducted under the supervision of Dr. Amit Baumel and Prof. David Roe. It aims to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of transforming traditional face-to-face mental health intervention programs into blended care – i.e., a form of intervention that interconnects components of face-to-face therapy and digital interventions. The idea is that when designed appropriately, a combination of these components may enable to achieve an efficient and more accessible intervention as it harvests benefits from both treatment formats. Mayan is conducting his study in collaboration with NAVIGATE, a coordinated specialty care program operating across Israel, treating young people following a first-episode psychosis.
Mayan completed his M.A in Psychobiology and Clinical Psychology at Tel-Aviv University. He is a resident in Clinical Psychology, currently treating children, adolescents, and adults in- and outpatients in the Loewenstein Rehabilitation Hospital.
Or Brandes,
Ph.D. Student
Or joined the Department of Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa as a PhD student in October 2019. Her research in the field of digital parent training programs for child disruptive behaviors focuses on the relationships between content tailoring, program usage, user attachment style and clinical outcomes.
Or completed her M.A. in clinical psychology (summa cum laude) at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzelia and holds another M.A in medical psychology from the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College. She is currently a resident in clinical psychology at Machon Shalem, providing child and adolescent psychotherapy, parent-child therapy and parent training.
Chen Saar,
Ph.D. Student
Chen studies digital parent training interventions for children with disruptive behaviors. Her research focuses specifically on the impact of an unguided-intervention design, in terms of therapeutic persuasiveness, on processes of change, and the relationship between program usage and behavioral/clinical outcomes.
Chen completed her B.Sc. in Information Systems engineering at the Haifa Technion Institute and worked for 6 years as a project analyst at “Intel”. She then completed M.A. studies in Occupational and Organizational Psychology at the University of Haifa. Chen is a licensed educational psychologist and completed her internship at the psychological-educational services of Binyamina local council.
Ohad Ashur,
Ph.D. Student
Ohad joined the Department for Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa as a PhD student in October 2019. His research focuses on the development of eHealth therapeutic alliance measurement.
Ohad completed his M.A. in Clinical Psychology at Bar-Ilan University. He completed one year of clinical internship at Israeli Air Force (IAF) as psychology officer and two years at AMCHA, treating children, adults and holocaust survivals. Ohad has extensive experience at the field of smoking cessation including professional training and product management of eHealth smoking cessation mobile App. Nowadays Ohad work as the director of the National Smoking Cessation Quitline at The Israeli Ministry of Health.
Tomer Savir,
Ph.D. Student
Tomer joined the Department of Community Mental Health at the University of Haifa as a PhD student in October 2022. His research focuses on the effects of situational factors on preferences towards different mental health interventions, assessed in real-time using a digital screening tool.
Tomer completed his MA in Clinical Psychology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a resident in Clinical Psychology, conducting psychotherapy and psychological assessment at Shalev Center, Hillel Yaffe Medical Center
