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National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders

Our Mission

Our mission is to advance education and training of healthcare providers and to promote public awareness of eating disorders and eating disorder treatment.

NCEED is the nation’s first center of excellence dedicated to eating disorders. Founded in 2018 by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, our mission is to advance education and training of healthcare providers and to promote public awareness of eating disorders and eating disorder treatment.

Based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NCEED includes clinicians, researchers, and advocates who specialize in eating disorder care. We are committed to providing up-to-date, reliable, and evidence-based information.

Our goal is to ensure that all individuals with eating disorders are identified, treated, and supported in recovery. Though eating disorders are serious conditions, they can be identified and treated effectively – particularly when providers and the public have the knowledge and skills necessary to make a difference.

Click here for a PDF overview of NCEED!

LEADERSHIP

NCEED Leadership Team

Christine Peat

Christine Peat, PhD, FAED, LP

Director

Dr. Christine Peat is the Director of the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (NCEED) and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jean Doak

Jean Doak, PhD

Deputy Director

Dr. Jean Doak is a Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Director in the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Cynthia Bulik

Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED

Senior Faculty

Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik is the Founding Director of the University of North Carolina Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders.

NCEED Content Experts

Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodríguez, PhD, FAED

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dr. Mae Lynn Reyes-Rodríguez is a Clinical Professor at the Center of Excellence of Eating Disorders (CEED) in the Psychiatry Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a Fellow of the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED) and Content Expert for the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (NCEED). As a researcher and clinical psychologist, she has devoted her clinical research career to adapting eating disorder treatments for the Latino community. She worked in Puerto Rico during her early career and later with the Latino community on the mainland, primarily in Central North Carolina. She has published numerous papers and book chapters on cultural adaptation to reduce health disparity and enhance treatment accessibility. She is actively involved in the Latino community as a columnist in one of the main Latino newspapers in North Carolina, La Noticia. Her articles provide psychoeducation on mental health to raise awareness and reduce health disparities. Dr. Reyes-Rodríguez is the Editor-in-Chief of the Puerto Rican Journal of Psychology.

Ellen Rome, MD, MPH

Dr. Ellen Rome is the Head of the Center for Adolescent Medicine at Cleveland Clinic Children’s and Professor of Pediatrics at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case. Among the first in the U.S. to be board certified in Adolescent Medicine, Dr. Rome graduated magna cum laude from Yale, received her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, did her residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, then completed a three year fellowship in adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital, Boston. She also received her Masters in Public Health from Harvard University.

Dr. Rome is a past president of both the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology (NASPAG) and its umbrella organization with over 6,000 members, the International Federation for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology (FIGIJ). She has served on the Committee on Adolescence and the Committee on Nutrition for the AAP, chaired the Subcommittee on Eating Disorders for the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine (SAHM), and chaired the Public Health and the Media Committees and serves on the Medical Care Task Force for the Academy for Eating Disorders (AED). Dr. Rome’s research interests include eating disorders, obesity, reproductive health, and preventive care. She has been an invited speaker locally, nationally, and internationally.

Lesley Williams, MD

Dr. Lesley Williams is a board certified Family Medicine physician and eating disorders expert. She received her medical degree from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and completed her family medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona. Dr. Williams gives national and international lectures on various topics related to eating disorders and is recognized as a clinician leader in the field. Dr. Williams serves on the Academy for Eating Disorders executive board of directors. Her professional passions include midlife care for women, health equity advocacy and weight inclusivity education. She is the award-winning author of the children’s book, Free to Be Me: Self Love For All Sizes and contributing author to How to Nourish Yourself Through an Eating Disorder.

Patrick Butler, PhD

Patrick Butler is a faculty social worker at CEED working primarily with adolescent and young adult patients and their families. From 2013-2023, he was the Director of Mental Health Services in Adolescent Medicine at The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City. Prior to moving to Oklahoma to initiate their disordered eating program, he held a similar position in Adolescent Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.

NCEED Staff

La-Shell Johnson
Courtenay Pierce
Christine Peat, PhD, FAED, LP
Director

Dr. Christine Peat is the Director of the National Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders (NCEED) and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As the Director of NCEED, Dr. Peat is focused on broadly disseminating education and training on eating disorders to healthcare providers across a variety of disciplines. Her scientific research has focused on evidence-based treatments for eating disorders and the physiological comorbidities associated with these conditions.

Dr. Peat is also a licensed psychologist in North Carolina and continues to be an active clinician at UNC serving patients with eating disorders, supporting healthcare providers in the UNC Wellbeing Program, and providing behavioral medicine interventions to patients in various medical settings. In addition to her clinical and research responsibilities, Dr. Peat is also the Associate Director of Program Development in the Clinical Psychology Internship at UNC and is the current Board President for the Eating Disorders Coalition.

Jean Doak, PhD
Deputy Director

Dr. Jean Doak is a Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical Director in the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). Dr. Doak has held various positions in academic medicine, non-profit, and for-profit organizations and within various levels of care. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Biology from Houston Baptist University, a Master of Arts in Psychology from University of Houston – Clear Lake, and a Doctorate in Counseling Psychology from the University of Houston. Dr. Doak completed her clinical internship at the University of Texas Medical Branch with a specialization in pediatric psychology and completed a LEAH (Leadership in Education and Adolescent Health) post-doctoral fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital, focusing on education, training and clinical practice in adolescent medicine/mental health with a specialization in eating disorders.

She has extensive training in Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Enhanced Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT-E) for Eating Disorders through the Centre for Research on Eating Disorders at Oxford, and Maudsley Family-Based Treatment (FBT). In addition to clinical practice, her work has focused on clinical training, consultation, program development, research/training/practice integration, and clinical operations. Dr. Doak’s most recent positions include: Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital and Regional Director at Cleveland Center for Eating Disorders/The Emily Program.

Conflicts of Interest Statement:
Dr. Doak reports the following potentially competing financial interest: income or honorarium from Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Allergan PLC (Naurex Inc., an indirect subsidiary of Allergan, PLC).

Cynthia Bulik, PhD, FAED
Senior Faculty

Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik is the Founding Director of the University of North Carolina Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders, Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders in the Department of Psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine, Professor of Nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and Professor in the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden where she directs the Centre for Eating Disorders Innovation.

A clinical psychologist, Dr. Bulik received her BA from the University of Notre Dame and her MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. She completed internships and post-doctoral fellowships at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She was the lead principal investigator of the Anorexia Nervosa Genetics Initiative (ANGI) and is founder and co-chair of the Eating Disorders Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. She has active research collaborations in over twenty countries and has published over 600 papers and chapters on eating disorders.

Dr. Bulik is past president of the Academy for Eating Disorders, past vice-president of the Eating Disorders Coalition, past associate editor of the International Journal of Eating Disorders, and she has served on clinical or scientific advisory committees for the Global Foundation for Eating Disorders, Project Heal, and F.E.A.S.T.

Dr. Bulik has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Eating Disorders Coalition Research Award, the Academy for Eating Disorders Leadership Award for Research, the Price Family National Eating Disorders Association Research Award, IAEDP Honorary Certified Eating Disorders Specialist Award, the Academy for Eating Disorders Meehan/Hartley Award for Advocacy, and the Don and Melissa Nielsen Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Eating Disorders Association.

She is author of seven books including Crave, The Woman in the Mirror, Midlife Eating Disorders, and Binge Control: A Compact Recovery Guide. Read more at www.cynthiabulik.com.

Conflicts of Interest Statement:
Dr. Bulik reports the following potentially competing financial interests: A grant recipient and Scientific Advisory Board member at Shire as well as an author and royalty recipient from Pearson and Walker.

Dr. Bulik reports the following potentially competing non-financial interests: Clinical Advisory Board with Project Heal; Advisory Panel with FEAST; Advisory Council member at the Carolina Resource Center for Eating Disorders; Media Expert Panel for the Coalition for the Advancement and Application of Psychological Science; Scientific Advisory Panel for the Global Foundation for Eating Disorders.

Dr. Bulik also serves as a collaborator with OpenBiome and Recovery Record as well as a grant recipient and collaborator with uBiome.