Andrew Lancia, MD

Bio: Andrew J. Lancia is the Associate Chair of Clinical Affairs and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria.  He has been a member of the Illinois Psychiatric Society since 2010 and has served as a council member since 2017, currently as a Past President, previously serving as the President, Treasurer, Secretary, Councilor, and Downstate Councilor.  He received the IPS 2015 Outstanding Achievement Award in Integrating Behavioral Health into Primary Care.  In 2019, he was accepted as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. After the pandemic started, he was acknowledge formally by Governor Pritzker for his work addressing issues surrounding COVID-19.  In Peoria, Dr. Lancia teaches medical students and residents while running an inpatient psychiatric unit and the CL service.  He just re-establish and manages the ECT service.  He served as medical director for the Carle Health Behavioral Health Integrated Services of Hospital Based Programs (Methodist Campus) from 2015 to 2026 and continues to be medical director for the Consultation-Liaison Services (since 2010).  He graduated as chief resident at the University of Iowa and the Caterpillar Faculty Scholars Fellowship at UICOMP.

Anneka Johnston-Dumerauf, MD

Bio: Dr. Anneka Johnston is a 4th year psychiatry resident at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. Prior to medical school, she worked in a suboxone clinic at the height of Chicago's opioid epidemic, where she developed a passion for increasing access to mental healthcare and providing evidence-based treatments for vulnerable and medically complex populations. Her academic work spans clinical research, medical education, and the medical humanities. Both her creative work, as well as a systematic review of mindfulness interventions on the autonomic nervous system, have been published in peer-reviewed journals. During residency, she created a post-hospitalization bridge clinic to improve follow-up for patients after discharge from inpatient psychiatry and has presented at national and international conferences. A long-held passion in narrative medicine has led to ongoing work developing a standing narrative medicine speakers series at Rush and a longitudinal medical student track, as well as poetry writing workshops for medical students, residents and faculty. Her clinical interests include women’s mental health, and the interplay between psychiatry and histiocytic conditions. Following residency, she plans to pursue fellowship training in consult liaison psychiatry

Natalie Potechonski, DO

Bio: Dr. Natalie Polechonski is currently a 4th year psychiatry resident at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. During residency, she has served as a Chief Resident during both PGY-3 and PGY-4 academic years, providing leadership and support to her colleagues while contributing to initiatives that strengthen the residency program, including updating the residency handbook. 

Dr. Polechonski has a passion for medical education and is a part of a 2-year longitudinal Medical Educator Track where she is creating an Emergency Psychiatry curriculum targeted towards enhancing the educational needs of staff screening psychiatric patients both in the emergency room and the community setting. She has presented a variety of resident didactic topics such as Mental Status Exam, Managing a Violent Patient and Psychiatry Interview Tips.

Her academic and professional interests include consult liaison psychiatry, perinatal psychiatry and medical education.She will be presenting a poster at the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP) annual meeting in November entitled, “When OCD and PTSD Collide: Psychogenic Polydipsia in a High-Risk Peripartum Patient with SSRI Treatment Failure.”

After residency, Dr. Polechonski plans to pursue fellowship training in Consult Liaison Psychiatry and eventually plans to practice CL psychiatry in an academic setting.

Tomas Stavskis

Bio: Tomas Stavskis is a 4th year medical student at Midwestern University - Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine. He enrolled in medical school to become a psychiatrist after being inspired by how his psychotherapist mother transformed into a superhero to help her patients through mental health crises. During his pre-clinical years, the IPS medical student committee helped mentor him and grow his love for psychiatry, he is honored to now lead the committee and provide the same resources for the next generation of psychiatrists in Illinois.

Theodote K. Pontikes, MD, MBA-HCM, DFAACAP, DFAPA, FACLP

Bio: Dr. Theodote K. Pontikes is a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at the Stritch School of Medicine (Loyola University Chicago) and has served as Psychiatry residency program director at Loyola University Medical Center since 2021. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, as well as a Fellow of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. She currently serves as the President of the Illinois Council of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Dr. Pontikes completed Psychiatry residency and a Clinical Medical Ethics fellowship at the University of Chicago, followed by fellowship training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital program (Harvard Medical School), as well as in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance (Harvard Medical School). She also earned a MBA degree in Health Care Management (Loyola University Chicago).

Dr. Pontikes is especially interested in interdisciplinary collaboration and integrated care; clinical medical ethics; transcultural issues and the reduction of healthcare disparities; advocacy; medical education; and mentorship. She has received several awards in recognition of her contributions to medical education and servant leadership and, in 2026, was inducted into the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society.

Samuel Jackson, MD

Bio: Samuel Jackson, M.D., is a Street Psychiatrist based in Chicago, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Rush, Loyola, and the University of Illinois Chicago, and a graduate of Columbia’s Public Psychiatry Fellowship. He is the Founder and President of the Street Mental Health Coalition, and has helped start Street Psychiatry programs through the city of Chicago.

Peter Chien, MD

Bio: Dr. Peter Chien is the co- founder and Medical Director of the Hines VA Acute Recovery Center(ARC), a crisis outpatient program for suicidal Veterans. As both diversion for Veterans who would have otherwise been hospitalized and as step-down often allowing  earlier hospital discharge, ARC has effectively treated more than a thousand suicidal Veterans in its 14-year history. 

Dr. Chien is also a national educator for the VA's Whole Health transformation, and he is the President of the American Association for Community Psychiatry (AACP). These support his beliefs in promoting public health psychiatry and mental wellness.

Shin Lee, MD

Bio: Dr. Shin Lee is a board-certified psychiatrist dedicated to delivering comprehensive, patient-centered care across both inpatient and outpatient settings. He earned his Medical Degree from New York University Grossman School of Medicine and completed his psychiatry residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Currently, Dr. Lee serves as an attending psychiatrist at Madden Mental Health Center while managing his private practice, TheoMind Psychiatry. He is involved in medical education as a faculty member at the University of Illinois College of Medicine and Loyola University of Chicago, supervising psychiatry residents and medical students.

Sandra S. Swantek, MD

Bio: Sandra S. Swantek, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the recently retired Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry at Rush University Medical Center. A board-certified geriatric psychiatrist, she has devoted three decades to improving the care, dignity, and rights of older adults.

Dr. Swantek has translated clinical experience into advocacy at state, national, and international levels. As an Illinois Psychiatric Society Councilor and past Chair of its Public Affairs Committee, she has advocated for safe psychiatric care and opposed expansion of prescribing authority without adequate safeguards for older adults. As an American Medical Association delegate representing geriatric psychiatry, she authored and secured adoption of Resolution 708, Access to Psychiatric Treatment in Long-Term Care. She has also contributed to American Psychiatric Association policy statements addressing ageism, dementia care, palliative psychiatry, substance use, driving, and the role of psychiatrists in nursing facilities.

A past president and Distinguished Fellow of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, Dr. Swantek has advanced workforce development, Medicare policy, brain health, and human-rights-based care. She serves on the Illinois Department of Public Health Abuse Prevention Review Team and collaborates internationally to promote mental health, legal capacity, dignity, and agency in the emerging United Nations Convention on the Rights of Older Persons.

L. Joy Houston, MD, DFAPA

Bio: L. Joy Houston, MD, is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Vice Chair of Education in the department of Psychiatry at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU). She completed medical school and psychiatric residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), where she joined the faculty after graduation. She served as Associate Program Director of the UMMC Psychiatry Residency Program and then as Program Director before joining SIU’s faculty in 2020. She has won numerous teaching awards and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Association for Academic Psychiatry (AAP) and the American Psychiatric Association. She has served in leadership roles for the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training, AAP, and the Illinois district branch of the APA. She has presented nationally and internationally on educational topics and served in the Psychiatry Milestones 2.0 work group for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. She serves on the editorial board for Academic Psychiatry. She is a co-editor of the textbook, Graduate Medical Education in Psychiatry: From Basic Processes to True Innovation and lead series editor for the Excellence in Medical Education series of textbooks. Her research interests include program director well-being and burnout, active learning methodologies, curriculum development, and educational scholarship.

Joan Anzia, MD

Bio: Joan M. Anzia, M.D. is Professor Emerita of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine/Northwestern University; from 2006 until 2022 she served as Vice Chair of Education for the Department of Psychiatry and as the first Physician Health Liaison/Wellness Officer for Northwestern Memorial Hospital and Lurie Children’s Hospital. 

Dr. Anzia served as a residency program director and associate director for over 30 years at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Northwestern and has won numerous local, regional and national teaching awards during her career.  She was chosen as Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Mecklenberg Distinguished Physician Awardee in 2020 for her work on improving physician wellbeing, as well as the McGaw GME Distinguished Service Awardee in 2016.  She is a Past President of the Association for Academic Psychiatry (AAP).  Dr. Anzia also served as a member of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Medical Education and Lifelong Learning, and she is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the APA.  In 2017 she was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha at Northwestern.

Dr. Anzia served as a Director of the ABPN and as President of the Illinois Psychiatric Society from 2004-2006. She is the current President of the American College of Psychiatrists.