Faculty
Extensive supervision is provided by the Program Director and faculty. Faculty include nationally and internationally-known forensic psychiatrists, including the renowned Phillip Resnick, MD and Susan Hatters-Friedman, MD.
Our faculty has many other board-certified, fellowship-trained psychiatrists and child psychiatrists who practice forensic psychiatry and have a strong interest in teaching.
- Program Director, Forensic Psychiatry, UH Cleveland Medical Center
- Professor, CWRU School of Medicine
Ashley VanDercar, MD, JD

- Associate Program Director, Forensic Psychiatry, UH Cleveland Medical Center
Ashley VanDercar, MD, JD began her career as an attorney, working in the healthcare field. In 2012, she enrolled in medical school at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. After graduation, she moved to Cleveland for postgraduate training and completed the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center / Case Western Reserve University Fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry – which she is now the Associate Director of.
Dr. VanDercar has published on a variety of topics, including organizational psychiatry, the insanity defense, school shooters, and terrorism. She has presented nationally on topics ranging from psychiatric malpractice to mental illness in cult leaders. She also lectures for the Cleveland Police Department’s Crisis Intervention Training and co-teaches a semester-long course at the University of Akron School of Law.
Dr. VanDercar’s clinical practice is at Northcoast Behavioral Healthcare, a Regional Psychiatric Hospital, where she leads an inpatient competence to stand trial evaluation and restoration unit. In that role, she provides education to medical students, psychiatry residents, and forensic psychiatry fellows.
- Associate Program Director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UH Cleveland Medical Center
- Assistant Professor, CWRU School of Medicine
- Program Director, Adult Psychiatry, UH Cleveland Medical Center
- Co-Activity Director, Grand Rounds, UH Cleveland Medical Center
- Associate Professor, CWRU School of Medicine
- Director, Forensic Psychiatry, UH Cleveland Medical Center
- Division Chief, Forensic Psychiatry, UH Cleveland Medical Center
- Professor of Psychiatry, CWRU School of Medicine
- Professor of Pediatrics, CWRU School of Medicine