About Us
WellDAO is a Web3 platform built and owned by a mental health collective, founded by Dr. Paul R. Puri.
meet our amazing team
The Faces Behind WellDAO
We Couldn’t Do It Without Them
WellDAO is a Web3 platform built and owned by a mental health collective, founded by Dr. Paul R. Puri.
We Couldn’t Do It Without Them
Dr. Puri is a board certified psychiatrist, Assistant Clinical Professor at UCLA, and a third generation entrepreneur. He designed one of the first mental health apps on the iphone, PsychDx, and was the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of OOTify, a mental health tech platform focused on therapist matching.
Hands-on blockchain solutions architect with 20 years of experience directing software development teams, leading innovation programs, and defining decentralized business strategies for global clients and startups.
Christian Saucier is a technology leader with repeated experience building integrated blockchain solutions to solve real-world problems. Christian’s designs have been discussed at MIT, Columbia University, Canadian and US government industry panels, and numerous global media outlets. In 2018 his “Blockchain-of-Food” patented designs for ripe.io were adopted by IBM in its global supply chain traceability solutions. Christian’s real-estate tokenization product for Ubitquity is cited in Ethereum Improvement Proposal #721 as an inspiration for the creation of the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) standard we know today.
“Data is the new oil. We can all learn to better leverage our data. P2P networks provide new ways to address information and build trust among one another for secure value exchange. “
At the core of Christian’s P2P solutions are decentralized design patterns that he’s tested and deployed across a wide range of business problems:
The decade spent with PwC and IBM have instilled a consultant mindset that he continues to rely on today. Prior to his crypto years as a director for Hill-Rom (now a Baxter company), Christian lead a product-line of Healthcare IT connectivity and nursing workflow solutions (multiple patents) that operate today in thousands of hospitals around the world.
Other areas of experience include: technology strategy consulting, public presentations at global conferences, leading key opinion leader interviews, product innovation workshops, strategic sales, roadmap prioritization, business cases development, and software quality assurance leadership.
Josephine Wapakabulo founded TIG Africa after serving as inaugural CEO of Uganda’s National Oil Company (UNOC) where she spearheaded the commercial aspirations of Uganda’s Oil & Gas sector, securing over USD $20billion in projects with regional and global partners. Under her leadership UNOC put in place policies and agreements that aligned to IFC environmental and social risk standards, ensuring local participation and community development throughout Uganda’s petroleum value chain. Building on over 20 years’ corporate, entrepreneurial and board experience, Dr. Wapakabulo, through TIG Africa, works with investors and entrepreneurs to launch and build companies across Africa that foster sustainable development and improved livelihoods. She is currently CEO of Downforce Technologies, which provides accurate measurements of natural capital at scale, to ensure every hectare of land counts to achieve global climate, biodiversity and food security goals. An electrical engineer with a PhD in data standards and executive MBA from INSEAD, she spent most of her early career at Rolls-Royce. She is also an Advisory Board Member of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum.
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, founder of Evolve to Thrive Consulting, and co-founder of Therapy Reimagined and the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast. Katie has always loved leadership and began stepping into management positions soon after gaining her license in 2005. Her experience spans many leadership and management roles in the mental health field: program coordinator, director, clinical supervisor, hiring manager, recruiter, and President of her state professional organization. From her first forays into management, Katie was able to transform a struggling mental health program – engaging the team in implementing solutions that improved clinical outcomes, increased clinician productivity (and billing), and won awards for innovation and best practices. Now in business for herself, Katie provides coaching and business strategy to support leaders, visionaries, and helping professionals in pursuing their mission to help others, through one-on-one consultation as well as leadership and staff management training.
Dr. Muir Is a dual board-certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist, and co-author of Adolescent Suicide and Self-Injury: Mentalizing Theory and Treatment. He has held academic appointments at Hofstra-Northwell, NYU and Baylor, and is currently leading the management of suicidality curriculum at the Mayo Clinic general psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry training programs. He serves as the Vice President of Medical Affairs for First Tracks, a technology enabled network management platform focusing on mental health payment models. He has over 200 academic presentations and publications to his credit, focusing on high-risk populations and the role of interventional psychiatry. His main research interest is in neuromodulation for treatment resistant mood disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. He has over 60,000 hours of clinical experience and is an official supervisor for the practice of Mentalization Based Treatment. Dr. Muir is a gifted educator who creates Continuing Medical Education materials for the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and writes for the general public on topics at the intersection of healthcare and society on his popular Frontier Psychiatrists Substack. When not working to champion help that is actually helpful, he enjoys creating music and watching esoteric documentaries, especially with his twin children.
He is licensed in NY.
Emily is a board-certified general, child, and adolescent psychiatrist, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Charles Drew University, and active mental health policy advocate.
Emily specializes in working with individuals with trauma, neurodevelopmental disorders, and psychosis and their families. Her clinical experience includes public psychiatry, PHP/IOP, urgent mental health care, and private practice. In her role as a public psychiatrist, she strives to work collaboratively with her patients and their families and with wide-ranging multidisciplinary teams including attorneys, judges, child welfare staff, probation/law enforcement, and other mental health clinicians to minimize the harm perpetrated by the carceral system and promote mental health and well-being for her patients.
As Chair of Government Affairs for the California State Association of Psychiatrists (CSAP), Emily works with legislators and other community-based organizations to advocate for policies that promote mental health for all Californians. She is also the Treasurer and the Chair of the Alternative Crisis Response committee for the Southern California Psychiatric Society.
Emily attended the University of Washington for undergrad and then completed an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience & Neuroimaging at Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health. She came to the UCLA Semel Institute for her adult psychiatry residency, child & adolescent psychiatry fellowship, informatics fellowship, and post-doctoral research in neurodevelopmental disorders and trauma.
Clinical psychologist in practice in West Los Angeles, and currently a candidate at the CG Jung Institute of Los Angeles pursuing certification as a Jungian analyst. He has undergone extensive training in various approaches to working with trauma and holds a certificate in trauma studies from the Los Angeles Institute and Society for Psychoanalytic Studies. Additionally, he spent three and a half years undergoing training in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, a somatic-relational approach to working with complex and developmental trauma.
He served as adjunct faculty at California School of Professional Psychology in Los Angeles, am a clinical supervisor at Airport Marina Counseling Service, and holds a deep background and interest in the impact and relationship of media and our psychological lives. He has been interviewed on podcasts regarding the impact of media, and have lectured at the Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology on the impact of media as well as the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts on the psychology of film production and the film industry.
Prior to his career in psychology, he worked for almost 20 years in the media and film industries, where he worked both on-set, as an assistant editor, and finally as visual effects producer, technology manager, and in management capacity at several large visual effects and film organizations and numerous big-budget films, beginning with Air Force One and ending with Avatar.
Advocacy for the under-resourced and educating been the unmistakable themes in Dr. Tichianaa Armah’s career.
Tichianaa Armah, MD is the first Chief Psychiatry Officer at one of the nation’s largest Federally Qualified Health Centers. She also serves CHC Inc. as VP of Behavioral Health, Senior Faculty for their Weitzman Institute, medical advisor of the PMHNP residency program and Co-PI on its HRSA funded Optimizing Virtual Care grant. After graduating from the University of Rochester School of Medicine she attended Yale University for her psychiatry residency, where she was nominated for the Vera Pastor Award which she was awarded by the American Orthopsychiatry Association. She placed a spotlight on disparities in Mental and physical health as the 2011 American Psychiatric Association Yale Minority Fellow. Upon graduating she was awarded the Benjamin S. Bunny Award by the Psychiatry Residents association for her exceptional service to advocacy for residents, patients, clinical care and education.
It is probably no surprise that Dr. Armah is one of the founding organizers of the Yale Department of Psychiatry Social Justice and Health Equity curriculum (SJHE). She remains involved in teaching and supervising residents as an Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale School of Medicine. On a national level, Dr. Armah was recognized by the U.S Government as a Distinguished 400 awardee in 2021 and honored by the American Psychiatric Association for Excellence in Teaching Residents, one of its highest teaching awards for 2022-2023. Locally, she was the 2022 Champion for recovery for her dedication to patient care by Laurel House, which cares for people with severe mental illness, and was awarded the Roger Coleman Memorial Award for advocacy and service to her patients By the Connecticut Psychiatric Society. She is dedicated to her work and has spent the last decade advocating to increase access to equitable, high quality care, for adults and children, including promoting the adoption and maintenance of telehealth locally and nationally.
Dr. Armah believes that access to culturally informed and equitable mental healthcare is a necessity the world cannot afford to ignore.
Peter Presland-Byrne is the founder of Hammerhead Technology Corporation, a full services technology firm that helps clients achieve tangible results from their technology investments. Before devoting his work full time to Hammerhead Technology, he served in C level roles for large organizations including Bank of America and Freddie Mac.
Peter has received industry recognition for his work in modernization, digitization, technology business management, data management, and cultural innovation efforts on which he has spoken at industry and academic venues.
Peter and his family split his time in Florida and Costa Rica with his family and shares their passion about environmental and wildlife causes. Peter serves on the board of the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge and is an advisor to several early-stage startups.
Co-Founder at Wayahead Technology, a multi-faceted and full-service technology company providing thought leadership, innovation, investment, and consulting to startups and services companies within the US Market. Mr. Srivastava provides technology leadership to FinTech and HealthTech companies.
He has a varied and rich techno-managerial experience which covers developing enterprise applications, managing centers of excellence, implementing enterprise architecture, creating architecture strategy and managing successful offshore programs. As an entrepreneur he has launched real estate and IT companies and developing them to create value and growth.
He has managed global teams, multi-million dollar budgets and have created technology strategy and roadmaps which has influenced organization of more than 5000 people and multi Billion dollars of revenue.