The UCLA/VA Greater Los Angeles Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship
The UCLA/VA Greater Los Angeles Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program is a fully ACGME accredited one-year fellowship program for residents entering their PGY-5 year after completion of a General Psychiatry Residency Program. The predominant mission of the program is to provide psychiatric physicians with advanced training in the knowledge, skills, and clinical judgment necessary for the practice of Addiction Psychiatry to allow them to undertake leadership roles in the field. Clinical training occurs in outpatient, intensive outpatient, and residential treatment programs, on an inpatient consultation service, pain clinic settings, acute detoxification, and methadone clinic settings. Fellows gain expertise using all FDA approved pharmacotherapies for substance use disorders as well as evidence-based group therapy training. Formal didactics include participation in a weekly seminar series at UCLA and the VA involving collaboration with an interdisciplinary team, as well as a monthly case conference with Addiction Medicine fellows, and a monthly addiction journal club. Rotations occur at the Greater Los Angeles VA and UCLA-based sites, as well as Ascend Adolescent IOP.
The primary goals of fellowship training include developing clinical excellence in the diagnosis and treatment of individuals with substance use disorders with or without primary psychiatric diagnoses, broadening scientific knowledge in the field of Addiction Psychiatry, and expanding expertise in teaching Addiction Psychiatry. Closely working with a range of interdisciplinary treatment teams is a major aspect of the fellowship. The faculty consists of a diverse group of psychiatrists, internal medicine physicians, and psychologists who have many years of clinical and research experience in the field of substance use disorders.
If you have further questions, please feel free to email the Program Director, Isabella Morton M.D. MPH at isabella.morton@va.gov or the Associate Program Director, Muhammad Iqbal, M.D. at Muhammad.Iqbal2@va.gov. We look forward to hearing from you!
- VA West Los Angeles and Sepulveda Substance Use Disorders Outpatient Clinics
- The West Los Angeles VA Domiciliary Detox and Residential Program
- UCLA Addiction Psychiatry Clinic
- UCLA Inpatient Addiction Consult Service
- UCLA Homeless Health Collaborative – Street Psychiatry
- Ascend – Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Program
Isabella Morton, M.D. MPH
Dr. Isabella Morton is the Associate Medical Director of the Downtown Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Substance Use Disorders (SUD) Clinic and is a Health Sciences Clinical Instructor at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. She directs the UCLA-Veterans Affairs (VA) Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program. Dr. Morton completed her undergraduate education at Brown University, her medical training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC, and completed her Masters in Public Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed her internship at University of Maryland/Sheppard Pratt, then came to UCLA and finished her residency in adult general psychiatry. She completed her Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship At UCSF. She currently treats patients with SUDs at the downtown VA and in an outreach clinic on Skid Row. She is passionate about providing low threshold addiction treatment to vulnerable populations and working to reduce stigma and improve access to addiction treatment through education. She has two small children and loves to spend time outdoors and traveling.
Muhammad N Iqbal, M.D.
Muhammad N Iqbal, M.D. is a graduate of Dow Medical College in Pakistan. He completed his general psychiatry residency from New Jersey and combined addiction psychiatry/NIDA T-32 research fellowship from Columbia University in the city of New York. He is the Associate Program Director of UCLA/VA Greater Los Angeles Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program. He is also the Medical Director, Substance Use Disorder Clinics at Sepulveda VA (SACC VA), Greater Los Angeles. His responsibilities include management of substance use disorders clinic at Sepulveda VA, teaching psychiatry residents and fellows, and faculty presentations. His research interest lies in evaluating role of biomarkers in substance use disorders. He conducted research evaluating the feasibility of rapid induction onto Long Acting Buprenorphine Injection for High Potency Synthetic Opioid Users. He has also authored and coauthored original articles, abstracts, book chapters and poster presentations. His outside passion includes travelling, exercising and watching movies.
Larissa Mooney, M.D.
Larissa Mooney, M.D. is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director of the Addiction Psychiatry Division in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. She also directs the UCLA Addiction Psychiatry Clinic and the UCLA–Veterans Affairs (VA) Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program, where she supervises and teaches psychiatrists in the clinical management of substance use and co-occurring mental health disorders. Dr. Mooney serves as Deputy Chief of the Substance Use Disorders Subdivision at the Greater Los Angeles VA. She is a Past President of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP), a Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), and a Distinguished Fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and AAAP. Dr. Mooney is one of two Principal Investigators for the Greater Southern California Node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network. Her research focuses on treatment interventions for substance use disorders.
Joy Hao, M.D.
Dr. Joy Hao is an addiction physician with board certification in both internal medicine and addiction medicine (American Board of Addiction Medicine). She is the Medical Director of the West Los Angeles VA Substance Use Disorders Clinic, as well as Assistant Professor of Clinical Health Sciences at UCLA Department of Family Medicine, Center for Behavioral and Addiction Medicine (CBAM). She teaches fellows and residents from a variety of disciplines including psychiatry, Family Medicine, and Pain Management/Anesthesiology in the management of substance use disorders, with emphasis on opioid addiction as it intersects with chronic pain. She has conducted research at UCLA CBAM in two large multi-site NIH studies evaluating the efficacy of extended-release gabapentin Enacarbil for the treatment of alcohol use disorder, and effectiveness of combining bupropion and injectable extended-release naltrexone in treatment of methamphetamine use disorder.
Timothy Fong, M.D.
Dr. Timothy Fong is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. Dr. Fong completed his undergraduate and medical school at Northwestern University in Chicago. He then came to UCLA and finished his residency in adult general psychiatry in 2002 and was the first accredited addiction psychiatry fellow at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute (2002-2004). He is the co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program (UGSP) and serves on the Steering Committee for the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative. He was the Program Director of the UCLA Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship from 2009-2021 and is currently the Director of the UCLA Addiction Psychiatry Consult Service.
Karen Miotto, M.D.
Dr. Karen Miotto is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCLA, Director of the Behavioral Wellness Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Chair of the UCLA Health Physician Health Committee. Dr. Miotto is the immediate past Chair of California Public Protection & Physician Health (CPPPH) and is a long-term Board member and past president of the California Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM). She is dedicated to promoting physician wellness and educating others on how to reduce physician distress, burnout, substance use disorders (SUDs), and mental health conditions in the medical profession. Additionally, Dr. Miotto is a frequently invited speaker at local and international addiction medicine meetings. She is the recipient of a career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse and her area of is research addiction pharmacology.
Binyamin Amrami, M.D.
Dr. Binyamin Amrami graduated from the Gray School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University in Israel. He began his general psychiatry residency at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan and completed it at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He is board-certified in general psychiatry and addiction medicine and serves as a Health Sciences Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at UCLA. Additionally, he is the Medical Director of the West Los Angeles VA Mental Health Residential Rehabilitation Treatment Program.
Katherine Bailey, Ph.D.
Katherine Bailey, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist at the W. Los Angeles VA and the Deputy Chief of the SUD Section for the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. She provides clinical services and supervision in the outpatient SUD and Pain Clinics with a focus on evidence-based therapies. She earned a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, completed a clinical internship at the WLA VA, and a clinical fellowship in primary care at the San Francisco VA. She is a consultant for the CBT-Chronic Pain evidence based psychotherapy rollout, and is also certified in biofeedback, acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness. Research interests include chronic pain, SUD and smoking.
Michael Zito M.D.
Dr. Michael Zito is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. Along with Dr. Hao, he co-directs the VA West Los Angeles Substance Use Disorders Teaching Clinic. In this capacity, he trains addiction psychiatry/medicine fellows in the clinical management of substance use disorders. Dr. Zito also has an interest in psychotic disorders and is the Medical Director of the UCLA Aftercare Program, which is a specialized research program for First-Episode Schizophrenia, and is the Assistant Director of the VA West Los Angeles Thoughts and Perceptions Clinic (formerly Psychosis Clinic.) Dr. Zito has an interest in Methamphetamine-Associated Psychosis and has conducted research meant to better understand clinical outcomes in individuals with this disorder.
Jeremy Flores M.D.
Dr. Jeremy Flores is a faculty member in the Addiction Division of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He grew up in the Inland Empire (Fontana, CA), a community east of Los Angeles, and completed his undergraduate degree in molecular, cellular, developmental biology at UCLA in 2011. After graduating, he joined Teach for America and taught high school Algebra 1, Geometry, and Algebra 2 in Sanders, AZ on the Navajo reservation before coming back to Los Angeles to complete his medical degree at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA as a Geffen Scholar. His love of UCLA kept him in Los Angeles where he finished his residency at the Semel-UCLA Psychiatry Residency Program as Program Chief Resident in 2023. He subsequently completed the UCLA-VA Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program and joined faculty at UCLA in July 2024. Currently, he works as lead psychiatrist with the UCLA Homeless Health Collaborative program where he is developing a behavioral health street psychiatry program and leads a team of 2 clinical social workers and an additional psychiatrist. His focus is bringing care directly to where patients are at and outside the walls of a clinic with the goal of expanding access to behavioral health care to people experience homelessness in Los Angeles. He also attends on the Addiction Medicine consult service at Ronald Reagan Medical Center as well as the UCLA Addiction Psychiatry Clinic. He is interested in social justice in mental health, medical education, LGBTQIA+ advocacy and health, and working with underserved communities.
Davina Sassoon M.D.
Davina Sassoon serves as a Health Sciences Clinical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA and Core Faculty with the UCLA-Kern Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program. She earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, Texas and completed her Psychiatry residency at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee. During residency, she developed a strong interest in the treatment of co-occurring substance use disorders, leading her to pursue training in the UCLA–Veterans Affairs (VA) Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program. While in fellowship, Davina completed a rotation in the interdisciplinary VA Pain Clinic, where she cultivated a specialized focus at the intersection of addiction and pain. She continues her work in this area as an Addiction/Pain Psychiatrist providing clinical care and supervising medical education across multiple disciplines. She provides clinical instruction to Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) residents and Pain Medicine fellows in the Pain Clinic and works closely with trainees in Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry at the VA Domiciliary.
Lisa Acosta M.D.
Dr. Lisa Acosta is a Ventura County native and graduated cum laude with a BA in Psychology from Harvard University. She attended medical school at Rush University and then returned to California where she completed her Psychiatry residency at Harbor-UCLA and her Child & Adolescent Fellowship at Cedars Sinai. She has filled different positions in other residential and outpatient settings serving the moderate to severe mentally ill population. Dr. Acosta is double-boarded in Psychiatry and Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. She has worked with Ascend since 2019.
For the 2026-2027 recruitment season, applicants may begin applying on July 2, 2025 through the electronic residency application service (ERAS). Visit the ERAS website to learn more. Applicants must be board-eligible psychiatrists at the time of entry into the fellowship.
Interviews will be offered on a rolling basis from July to November 2025, therefore applicants are encouraged to submit their application as early in the cycle as possible. Interviews will be completed virtually unless an applicant requests an in person interview.
After Match Day in December 2026, applicants can apply to our program directly.
We will be recruiting up to four fellows.
Please contact Dr. Morton or Dr. Iqbal with questions. Thank you!