Faculty

Dr. Thompson completed his Psychiatry Residency at Tufts University/New England Medical Center and Psychobiology Fellowship at the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Thompson’s academic career is dedicated to developing improved treatments for moods disorders and educating the next generation of psychiatrists

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Tonarelli received her medical education and training in Internal Medicine and Neurology at Cordoba, Argentina. She moved to the USA, did a research fellowship in Stroke, and then she completed her training in the Psychiatry field. She is a board-certified Psychiatrist by The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry of Texas Tech University Medical Center at El Paso in 2015 as Assistant Professor. Her main interests are related to neuropsychiatric manifestations of Traumatic Brain Injuries, Stroke, Seizures, Parkinson disease, Intellectual Disability Disorder, and other cognitive disorders. She is a bilingual physician who is committed to teaching medical students and residents and improve the mental health of the community of El Paso. 

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Ortiz is an El Paso native. She received her medical training at the TTUHSC Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, then moved to Washington, D.C. where she completed her psychiatry residency at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is a diplomate of  the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Dr. Ortiz also completed a fellowship in Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical Center. She returned home to join the Texas Tech Department of Psychiatry faculty as an Assistant Professor in 2020. Her main interests include public psychiatry, adult and juvenile forensic psychiatry, and medical education. She is a bilingual physician who is dedicated to serving the population of El Paso.

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Kristine Muñoz Glass was born and raised in El Paso, Texas, and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame. She obtained her medical degree at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. She completed her psychiatry training while active duty in the U.S. Navy and honorably served seven years as a medical officer.

Following active-duty service, Dr. Glass worked as a community psychiatrist in San Diego. She returned back to her hometown serving the veteran population in the El Paso area for eight years. She is currently an assistant professor at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso.

Dr. De Vargas received her medical education at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, followed by training in General Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry when she moved to the USA. Dr. De Vargas has Board Certification in Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and has been with the department for over twenty years. Dr. de Vargas’ main professional interests include medical and mental health effects of childhood trauma experiences and resilience in pediatric psychiatric groups, mental health problems in unaccompanied minors who migrate to the US, innovative ways to treat children and adolescents with resistant depression and risk for suicide, and evidence- based interventions in children who have been traumatized, among other things. She is passionate about disseminating a trauma-informed care and practice to all trainees to promote a safe, stigma-free, compassionate and collaborative method of caring for the children, adolescents and their families.

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Martin attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, for her bachelor’s degree and after graduation served in the Peace Corps for two years, working as a community services specialist. The US Army then awarded her a Health Professions Scholarship to attend Tulane University’s School of Medicine, and upon graduation from medical school, was commissioned as a captain, and started her residency at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and went on to also complete a fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry there. She was then transferred to Ft. Knox where she served as the Chief of Behavioral Health for four years, as well as a deployment to Camp Bucca, Iraq, a detainee facility. Her last duty station in the Army was here in Texas at Ft. Bliss. After completing her military obligation, she was the Chief of the Child and Family Behavioral Health Service at Ft. Bliss for two years before joining Texas Tech in 2015. Her interests include the integration of psychiatry and primary care and public health. 

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Originally from Puerto Rico, Dr. Doval considers himself an El Pasoan. Dr. Doval obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at El Paso. He attended Nova Southeastern University Dr. Kiran C. Patel College of Osteopathic Medicine (NSU-KPCOM) for medical school in Florida. He completed his general psychiatry residency and child and adolescent psychiatry fellowship at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso. His main interests include trauma-informed care (TIC), academic psychiatry, pediatric consult-liaison psychiatry, medical education, and the psychiatric care of LGBT populations. Dr. Doval has dedicated his life to teaching, supervision, and providing care to El Paso as a bilingual physician. 

Dr. Alonso’s primary clinical interests include Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry, late-life psychiatry, clinical neurosciences, and psychopharmacology. She provides psychiatric care to young adults, middle-aged adults, and geriatric populations, with particular emphasis on the interface between medical and psychiatric illness. 

She is actively involved in teaching medical students and psychiatry residents across a broad range of psychiatric topics and is committed to mentorship and academic development. Her educational efforts focus on integrating neuroscience-based frameworks into clinical psychiatry.

Dr. Alonso received her medical degree from Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo. She completed her psychiatry residency at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center – Transmountain Campus, as part of the program’s inaugural graduating class in 2025. She is board-certified in Psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN). 

Originally from Arizona, Dr. Brown completed pre-medical studies at Pomona College in Claremont, California graduating in 1988 with a Bachelor’s Degree in English Literature prior to serving as a Medical Platoon Leader in the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado.   

In 1997, Dr. Brown graduated from the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.  He completed General Psychiatry Residency and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship training at Tripler Army Medical Center, Hawaii in 2002, with assignment to Fort Bliss, Texas in El Paso.  During a 20-year Army Psychiatry career, he served as the chief of various services including inpatient psychiatry, community mental health, child and family behavioral health, school-based behavioral health and was appointed to the Texas Tech Psychiatry faculty as a clinical assistant professor in 2006.   He served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, as well as in Afghanistan as the behavioral health consultant to the Army Surgeon General for the Afghanistan Theater of Operations.   In 2010, he earned a Master’s Degree in Public Health and completed fellowship training in Disaster Psychiatry, publishing research related to overcoming the stigma of mental health care seeking among combat veterans.  From 2008-2010, he served as clinical faculty at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in the Child and Adolescent program, supervising R3 Psychiatry Residents 

After retiring from Army service in 2016, he cared for veterans at the El Paso VA’s Military Trauma Treatment Program, and subsequently with the VISN 20 (Boise, ID) Clinical Resource Hub providing tele-psychiatry services, before working in the private sector providing tele-psychiatry services.  Dr. Brown is excited to return to an academic setting to work with students, residents and fellows preparing to meet the behavioral health needs of children and families living in the border region. 

 

Dr. Vargas grew up in the Juarez-El Paso, Texas, a binational metropolitan area. From a young age, he was fascinated by life sciences, reason why he majored in biology at the Autonomous University of Juarez, under the mentorship of Dr. Plenge-Tellechea. As an undergraduate student, he had the opportunity to join a biochemistry research lab to work on his science thesis. His thesis focused on calcium-transporting enzymes as model systems for studying the toxic effects of drugs and environmental pollutants, including structure-activity relationships between the chemical structures of dichlorobenzenes and calcium pump activity. 

He later joined the doctoral program in biological sciences/pathobiology at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) under the supervision of Dr. Manuel Miranda-Arango, where he completed his doctoral dissertation. His research focused on the regulation of dopamine and glycine transporters through phosphorylation and ubiquitination using various cellular models. He was the first scientist to describe the phosphorylation of the glycine transporter and its function. 

Dr. Vargas had the excellent opportunity to pursue postdoctoral training under the guidance of Dr. Ruth Perez at TTUHSC El Paso, in the Neuroscience Department, studying potential drugs to treat Parkinson’s disease and Multiple System Atrophy using different preclinical models. His postdoctoral research demonstrated that the FTY720 drug and its derivates increased trophic factor expression, improved neuronal viability, reduced α-synuclein aggregation, and reduced demyelination.   

Dr. Vargas’ primary research interest is to identify novel biomarkers for understanding brain cell progenitors and myelination dysfunctions in major depressive disorder, suicidality, and substance use disorder. He is particularly interested in how this mechanism progresses with normal aging. 

          Currently, he serves as a Research Assistant Professor at TTUHSC El Paso and is the laboratory manager of the Southwest Brain Bank: https://ttuhscep.edu/som/psychiatry/research/southwest-brain-bank/ 

Significant contributions to neuroscience define Dr. Vargas's career, notably in advancing understanding of depression and aging, cell progenitor function in depression, neuroinflammation, myelin neurodegeneration, and neurotrophic factors in neurodegeneration. Research efforts further examine interleukins and neurotrophic growth factors in mood disorders and suicidality, and address suicidality and obsessive-compulsive disorder in Latin American populations. Numerous publications in journals such as the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Translational Psychiatry, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, Frontiers in Psychiatry, and Neuropharmacology highlight Dr. Vargas’s scholarship. He serves as a review editor for Frontiers in Neuroscience and has received multiple awards, including the 2023 New Investigator Award from the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5424-4225 

Dr. Longhurst is a native El Pasoan. She received a Ph.D. in Psychology from Texas Tech University and M.Ed. in Counseling from the University of Texas at El Paso. She completed a pre-doctoral internship and a post-doctoral fellowship in Primary Care/Health Psychology at the South Texas Veterans Health Care System (STVHCS) in San Antonio. She joined the TTUHSCEP Department of Psychiatry faculty in 2018. Her primary clinical and research interests include the intersection of physical health and mental health concerns, integrated care, wellness, and multicultural issues, particularly those impacting Mexicans/Mexican Americans. She has a strong interest in training future clinicians in the provision of services to underserved populations, such as the people of her hometown of El Paso. Her longterm career goals include expanding the presence of primary care behavioral health integration services and services for oncology patients in the El Paso community, and building a body of research examining the impact of integrated care and wellness interventions.

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Christopher Castaneda attended medical school at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine where he was picked by his peers to be a part of the Gold Humanism Honor Society. He completed his Psychiatry residency at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He joined the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry in 2020 as Assistant Professor. His interests are Emergency Psychiatry, Schizophrenia, and suicide prevention.