PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Kara Becker, LMFT

Kara Becker attended Quinnipiac University and received her undergraduate degree in Business Management then earned her Master’s Degree from Southern Connecticut State University in Marriage and Family Therapy with a concentration in Gestalt Therapy. At SCSU, she developed and facilitated a body acceptance group for female students while supporting Center for Discovery’s adolescent eating disorder program.

Kara is passionate about working with family systems. Kara believes that family experiences have a significant impact on the growth and development of an individual. She has experience working with personality disorders, eating disorders, anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorders. She has worked with children, adolescents, families, and couples.

Kara has also worked as the Program Director for both Center for Discovery’s Eating Disorder Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient Program and Discovery Mood and Anxiety Program in New Haven, CT. Kara supervises marriage and family therapist candidates and therapists working towards licensure and is in the final stage of completing her AAMFT approved supervisor certification.

Kara is thrilled to be leading the Center for Discovery Southport team as Program Director and is committed to providing exceptional care to adolescents and their families.

PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Elizabeth Damon, R-DMT, LPC

Elizabeth Damon is a registered dance/movement therapist and licensed professional counselor with over ten years of experience in the mental health field. She believes in providing empirically validated treatment in a safe and supportive environment and is passionate about treating women with eating disorders. Her treatment approach is to provide room for growth and self-reflection as well as laughter and joy. She hopes that when her clients leave treatment they feel whole again, and are able to experience themselves, as well as life, in a more rich and complete way.

REGISTERED DIETITIAN

Jessica Filipkowski, RD, CD-N

Jessica Filipkowski is a Registered Dietitian and Certified Dietitian-Nutritionist in the state of Connecticut. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nutritional Science from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics from the University of New Haven. Additionally, Jessica successfully completed a clinically focused 50-week dietetic internship program at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. During more than 1400 hours of supervised practice, Jessica provided intensive nutrition therapy to numerous patient populations with various disease states. Jessica has nearly 5 years of experience working with both adolescents and young adults at the Center for Discovery Eating Disorder Programs. She is currently working towards her specialty certification as a Certified Eating Disorders Registered Dietitian. Jessica has a strong passion for helping others and is excited to support, educate, challenge, and motivate her new clients throughout their recovery process.

FACILITY MANAGER

Lauren Hunt

Lauren is a Connecticut native who received her Bachelor of Arts from Ithaca College. Lauren’s career in the Mental Health Counseling field began at Center for Discovery, where she worked as a counselor and on-call Facility Manager for the Southport Adolescent facility. She then stepped into the role of Facility Manager of the Wellington Young Adult facility. Lauren has a passion for introducing young women to the journey of recovery and providing them with the opportunity to change the course of their lives.

THERAPIST

Samantha Trayer, MA, LMFTA

Sammy Trayer received her Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fairfield University. Coming from a youth bureau setting, Sammy has worked with a variety of issues ranging from behavior problems, divorce and remarriage related issues, relationship difficulties, depression, anxiety, trauma, eating disorders and grief. She focuses on supporting families and individuals while assisting them in transitioning through life stages and obstacles.

Sammy is passionate about helping her clients develop a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them. Her aim is to help clients fulfill their therapeutic goals by strengthening their emotional well-being, increasing their self-esteem and self-worth, improving their interpersonal relationships, while helping them to become more mindful in their life. Sammy’s style is warm and inviting and she is direct and informative while working cohesively with her clients to identify their journey to recovery.

PRIMARY THERAPIST

Alyssa Battipaglia, LMFT

Alyssa Battipaglia received her Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Southern Connecticut State University. Alyssa has experience working with all ages and presenting problems from behavior problems, school refusal, anxiety and depression to eating disorders, trauma, self harm and low self esteem. She fundamentally believes that all people are capable and resilient. Her job is to help to look at the story your brain has written and be your co-author in writing a different, kinder, more authentic story to describe who you truly are. Alyssa’s philosophy is that she considers herself a “healer” and not a “fixer.” This means supporting her clients in going toward what hurts and accepting it with courage, so that it may be let go.

PSYCHIATRIST

Dr. Ilana Karpenos, MD

Dr. Ilana Karpenos graduated from Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education/ SUNY Downstate, a 7 year BS/MD program. She completed her training in pediatrics, psychiatry and child psychiatry at North Shore University Hospital and NY Presbyterian Hospital.

She has been in private practice in Westport for the past 20 years and has worked with CFD since 2012.
In addition, Dr. Karpenos has worked with IOPs as well consulted for multiple school districts in Fairfield County.
She’s board-certified in adult psychiatry and neurology as well as child and adolescent psychiatry.

PHYSICIAN

Dr. Marcie Schneider, MD, FAAP, FSAHM

Dr. Schneider graduated from Brown University, and attended medical school at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her residency was in Pediatrics at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, followed by a fellowship in Adolescent Medicine was at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, New York. She remained at North Shore for a total of 13 years and during that time became Associate Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine, and Medical Director for the Eating Disorders Day Program. She was recruited by Greenwich Hospital to start an Adolescent Program, which ran from June 1999 through June of 2005. Since July 2005, she has been in full time private practice of adolescent medicine. Additionally, since 2012 she has served as medical consultant for Center for Discovery’s Fairfield county adolescent and young adult residential facilities. Dr. Schneider is board certified in Pediatrics and in the subspecialty of Adolescent Medicine. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. She has served on the board of directors of the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, and was a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition from 2005 – 2011. She was has served on the Executive Committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section on Adolescent Health November since 2013.

PHYSICIAN

Sara Levine, MD, MPH, FAAP

Dr. Levine is board-certified in both general pediatrics and adolescent medicine.  She graduated from Yale University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency and adolescent medicine fellowship at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.  Dr. Levine is in private practice at Greenwich Adolescent & Young Adult Medicine, and she has been a medical consultant to Center for Discovery since 2012.

NURSE ADMINISTRATOR

Emma Ardry, RN

Emma Ardry obtained her bachelor’s in nursing from Southern Connecticut State University in 2011, and her masters in nursing management from Sacred Heart University in 2016. She has previously worked in a hospital setting as well as an adolescent residential facility before coming to Center for Discovery. Supporting young women through their journey of recovery, and seeing the shift in them is what makes this job so rewarding for her.