Course Co-Directors

Jordan Howard-Young, MD, MA-ID, DAAETS (he/they)

Jordan was born in Southern California and grew up in Las Vegas, NV. Coming from a working-class family, he was unable to afford college directly after graduating high school and spent several years working in food service and graphic design before becoming a community organizer in 2007 for former-President Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. He then worked as a union organizer for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and as a policy analyst on the legislation that subsequently became the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2009-10.

He went on to attend the University of Denver for undergraduate studies, majoring in both international development and health and integrated biological sciences, with a minor in religious studies. He earned a master’s degree in international development with graduate certificates in global health affairs and humanitarian assistance from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, spending 6 months in the Middle East studying health access, agency, and political perspectives among Palestinian refugees, government officials, and international organizations in the kingdom of Jordan.

He subsequently graduated with his doctorate of medicine from Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, where he participated in the population health and urban underserved tracks, served as president of the Arnold P. Gold Humanism Honor Society, and worked as a patient advocate for people experiencing homelessness.

He joined the FHCW and UMass families in 2018 as a resident in the Worcester Family Medicine Residency, serving as chief resident in his final year. While there, he also spent two years as co-chair of the Diversity in Recruitment Task Force, was a founding member of the Structural Oppression and Anti-Racism Committee, and completed longitudinal experiences in refugee health, gender affirmation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and psychopharmacology.

As of August 2021, he serves as our first primary care psychiatry fellow and a faculty physician at FHCW. He brings a passion for community psychiatry, public health and advocacy, anti-racism and anti-oppression work, substance use care, refugee and asylee care, gender affirmation, and the care of underserved and marginalized populations. He was instrumental in leveraging these passions into a proposal for this innovative fellowship.

Amber Cahill, PsyD (she/her) 

Amber is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. She completed internship training at the Battle Creek VA Medical Center in the primary care/health psychology track and went on to complete a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in primary care, health psychology, and medical education. Dr. Cahill is the Director of Behavioral Science for the Fitchburg Family Medicine Residency, where she develops and implements a behavioral science curriculum that educates resident physicians in addressing mental health, substance use, and health behavior change in primary care.

She is also faculty in the Center for Integrated Primary Care (umassmed.edu/cipc/) where she has co-created and led Project ECHO hubs for primary care providers who are new to treating opioid use disorders and prescribing buprenorphine. Dr. Cahill was a content advisor and creator for a SAMHSA grant, DATA Waiver Training for Massachusetts Students, and helped develop asynchronous, interactive online training on opioid use disorder and buprenorphine for medical and nursing students. Her clinical and academic focus has been on integrated primary care, improving treatment of substance use disorders in primary care, and enhancing substance use disorder education and training, particularly in medical education, with an emphasis on teaching harm reduction-informed care.

	Amber Cahill, PsyD (she/her)  is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. She completed internship training at the Battle Creek VA Medical Center in the primary care/health psychology track and went on to complete a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in primary care, health psychology, and medical education. Dr. Cahill is the Director of Behavioral Science for the Fitchburg Family Medicine Residency, where she develops and implements a behavioral science curriculum that educates resident physicians in addressing mental health, substance use, and health behavior change in primary care.		She is also faculty in the Center for Integrated Primary Care (umassmed.edu/cipc/) where she has co-created and led Project ECHO hubs for primary care providers who are new to treating opioid use disorders and prescribing buprenorphine. Dr. Cahill was a content advisor and creator for a SAMHSA grant, DATA Waiver Training for Massachusetts Students, and helped develop asynchronous, interactive online training on opioid use disorder and buprenorphine for medical and nursing students. Her clinical and academic focus has been on integrated primary care, improving treatment of substance use disorders in primary care, and enhancing substance use disorder education and training, particularly in medical education, with an emphasis on teaching harm reduction-informed care.