Dear Colleagues,

We are delighted to announce that Avital Falk, PhD, will be the Director of a new Division of Digital and Treatment Innovations and the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychology. In these new roles, Dr. Falk will be responsible for building and overseeing the new Division, which will focus on both novel delivery methods, including digital technologies and psychological treatment development. The Division will provide a centralized hub for faculty and trainees to gain mentorship and support in the development of novel digital tools, as well as psychotherapeutic treatment models to enhance and further care, and implementation and dissemination of these models via scholarship and community programs. Additionally, Dr. Falk will be responsible for overseeing, mentoring, and representing child psychology faculty, and will work collaboratively with Rebecca Rendleman, MD and Tony Ahmed, PhD to support career development, specialty programing, research, and training across both campuses for this rapidly expanding group within our department.

Dr. Falk is an Associate Professor of Psychology in Clinical Psychiatry here at Weill Cornell Medicine, where she has developed two areas of psychological and digital treatment innovation: She has expanded the Pediatric OCD, Anxiety, and Tic disorders (POCAT) Program and developed innovative intensive treatment programs to target pediatric OCD and anxiety disorders, and she has designed Maya, Weill Cornell Medicine’s digital app which provides a flexible and modular platform to disseminate cognitive behavioral therapy. She has been dedicated to the growth of these areas, training within them, and research to support their efficacy and dissemination. Dr. Falk received her undergraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania and her doctorate at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She completed her psychology internship at the NYU Child Study Center/Bellevue Hospital and her post-doctoral fellowship at the Youth Anxiety Center (now the Center for Youth Mental Health) at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medicine.

We could not be happier to launch these two new roles. Dr. Falk is uniquely positioned to further our goals of providing innovative treatment and delivery models to current clinical and digital psychological programs to further Weill Cornell Medicine/NewYork-Presbyterian’s excellence in psychiatry. 

Sincerely, 



Francis S. Lee, MD, PhD

Chair and Psychiatrist-in-Chief

Weill Cornell Medicine – NewYork-Presbyterian