Promoting Healing, Connection, and Kindness

Carla Pulliam, PhD, is the Executive Director of Chrysalis Community and the co-founder of Chrysalis Center: Integrated Psychological Health. As a clinical psychologist with more than 25 years of experience in multiple clinical settings, she brings deep clinical expertise and a collaborative, community-centered approach to her work. Under her leadership, Chrysalis Community has built accessible, culturally responsive, relationship-based programs in close collaboration with local organizations, clinicians, educators, and community leaders.

Dr. Pulliam earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where she also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Health and Hospital Psychology. She holds a BA in Psychology from Smith College.

In addition to her general psychotherapy practice, Dr. Pulliam is particularly passionate about working with parent/child relationships, early relational health, and women across the lifespan in both individual and group psychotherapy.

Dennis Burchette Jr., Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist with specialized training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). He brings a wealth of experience through his background of working with a diverse population of children, adolescents, and young adults in both clinical and medical settings. Dr. Burchette received his doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. During his graduate training, he worked with a range of patients presenting with comorbid physical and mental health concerns in a variety of settings. Dr. Burchette subsequently completed his Postdoctoral Fellowship at Dallas Emotional Health, further specializing in the treatment of anxiety disorders. Dr. Burchette has extensive experience treating clients with various concerns including depression, anxiety, other mood disorders, trauma, pain management, and relationship and behavioral difficulties. He provides supervision, training, and teaching at various medical and graduate schools and currently serves as the President of the Dallas Psychological Association (DPA).

In his spare time, Dr. Burchette enjoys outdoor activities (e.g., pickleball, running, hiking, canoeing) and spending time with family and friends.

Brittany Dodd is a healthcare executive and growth leader with more than 20 years of experience building high-performing teams, developing leaders, and creating lasting impact. At the heart of her leadership is a deep belief in helping people become the best version of themselves, both personally and professionally. Passionate about ensuring people in need have access to therapy, support, and hope, Brittany believes that when individuals heal and thrive, they strengthen families and communities.

She holds a business degree from Abilene Christian University and an MBA from Texas Woman’s University. Outside of work, time is typically spent with her family, cheering on her two boys from the sidelines, playing with their much-loved dog, traveling, or gathering around the table at home. A lifelong violinist, Brittany also enjoys music as a creative outlet.

Andy McGarrahan, Ph.D. is a licensed Clinical Psychologist. He has worked at a large pediatric hospital doing group, individual and family therapy with patients with eating disorders since 1999. He also has a private practice where he primarily sees adolescents and young adults in therapy. He is also a faculty member in a Clinical Psychology Ph.D. program.

Chaundra J. Merrell is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Independent Clinical Technical Consultant specializing in refugee and post-migration mental health, cross-cultural interventions, and program development. Through her consulting practice, she adapts global mental health literacy frameworks into actionable clinical strategy, technical grant writing, and capacity-building for NGOs and nonprofits serving populations navigating forced migration and legal liminality. She also builds practicum training infrastructure, providing specialized clinical supervision to Master of Social Work (MSW), Psychology PhD, and LPC trainees—helping organizations expand service capacity.

In direct care, Chaundra integrates a top-down and bottom-up approach—pairing cognitive and somatic coping tools with nervous system stabilization through expressive art, photography, and color.

As Clinical Director for Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (YTT) U.S., she oversees arts-based interventions and analyzes artwork datasets to explore how visual stabilization patterns drive therapeutic change. Her research connects human adaptation to broader complex systems, generating insights with emerging implications for physics, technology, modernized funding structures, and immigration policy.

Outside of work, Chaundra’s favorite routine is jamming to music with her daughter on their morning electric scooter ride to school, or baking fresh beer bread with honey butter.

Ann Marie Warren, PhD, ABPP is a licensed psychologist who is board certified in Rehabilitation Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. The focus of both her clinical and research work over the past 25 years at Baylor Scott & White Health has been on the psychological experience of individuals with significant medical conditions including physical injury and disability, organ transplantation, and chronic disease. Currently, she is the Research Center Director for the Recovery, Rehabilitation and Resilience Research Center at Baylor Scott & White Research Institute and is also the Ginger Murchison Chair for Traumatic Brain Injury Research. She serves as the Project Director of the BSW SCI Model System Center and is the co-Project Director for the North Texas Traumatic Brain Injury Model System Center. She has served as a Principal Investigator, Site Principal Investigator and a Co-Investigator on funded grants with support from the Department of Defense, National Institute of Mental Health Care Systems Collaboratory, National Institute of Health, National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research, Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, the W.W. Caruth, Jr. Fund at Communities Foundation of Texas, Cardiovascular Research Review Committee at BSWRI and the Baylor Scott & White Foundation.