Welcome New Providers

In addition to the many new physicians joining our faculty in 2023, the Department of Neurology is pleased to welcome several Nurse Practitioners, Genetic Counselors, and Social Workers to our patient care teams!

Erika R. Adelman, LCSW, SIFI

Neurology Social Work Manager, Movement Disorders Social Worker
Center of Excellence Coordinator for Parkinson's Foundation and CurePSP
Division of Movement Disorders
Erika Adelman, LCSW, SIFI is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker who joins us from NYP-Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where she worked as the Social Work Resource Liaison for the Parkinson’s and Other Movement Disorders Program and provided care coordination and support for individuals living with Parkinson’s Disease and their loved ones. She also ran the hospital’s Parkinson’s Disease Exercise and Wellness Program, and oversaw the MSW Internship Training Program, which she founded in 2016 to help raise Parkinson’s specific competencies for social workers in training. Furthermore, Erika was the former Program Coordinator for the American Parkinson Disease Association’s Information and Referral Center Hotline at NYP-Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, where she provided resources to those living with Parkinson’s in Brooklyn and beyond. Erika currently provides counseling services for people living with Parkinson’s as well as their loved ones through her own part-time private practice, facilitates a support group for people living with Parkinson's Disease in collaboration with Senior Helpers NYC as well as a Parkinson's Disease Caregivers Group in collaboration with the Sephardic Community Center on a monthly basis, sits on the Medical Advisory Board for LifeSpark, and is an active member of the NASW-NYC Chapter. Fueled by her passion for making a real difference in the lives of others, Erika has a strong desire to work with our team, community leaders, and the national associations to overcome the barriers of stigma and discrimination that currently exist within our healthcare and social service systems by providing more education, resources, and support to vulnerable individuals who suffer from mental health and neurodegenerative conditions. Erika also has an invested interest in bringing social work to the forefront in the field of movement disorders, and conducting research studies that focus on the non-motor symptoms and neuropsychiatric manifestations of Parkinson’s Disease.

Emily Borghard, LMSW

Licensed Clinical Social Worker
Division of Epilepsy and Division of Multiple Sclerosis
Emily Borghard, LMSW is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the Division of Epilepsy and Division of Multiple Sclerosis. She received her BA in French and Spanish from SUNY Geneseo and her Masters in clinical social work from Fordham University.  She has her LMSW. She has been at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Neurology Multiple Sclerosis and Epilepsy divisions since 2022. Emily started as a therapist working with survivors of domestic violence and mobile crisis teams up until 2022.  She now splits her time in the neurology department working with the epilepsy and multiple sclerosis units providing case management, working closely with the neurologists who refer the patients to her for assistance with housing, disability services, paperwork and  medical equipment needs amongst others. 

Wendy P. Gonzalez, NP

Nurse Practitioner
Division of Aging and Dementia
Wendy P. Gonzalez, NP is a Nurse Practitioner for the Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease at Columbia University Medical Center. Wendy is bilingual in English and Spanish and is a native of Ecuador who came to the United States as a child. She originally attended Christ Hospital School of Nursing in Jersey City, New Jersey, where she received an Associates of Science Degree in Nursing. Wendy then attended Lehman College, graduating with honors with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. While working as a Director of Nursing in an adult day care center and subsequently as a Case Manager for Amerigroup, she attended Hunter College School of Nursing and in 2019 was awarded a Master of Science in Nursing as a Gerontological/Adult Nurse Practitioner. Wendy is a board-certified Adult Nurse Practitioner licensed in New York and New Jersey. She has worked primarily with adults and the elderly since she started her nursing career.

Kristen Lee Matulis, DNP, APRN, AGNP-C

Nurse Practitioner
Division of Movement Disorders
Kristen Matulis, DNP, APRN, AGNP-C is a Nurse Practitioner in the Division of Movement Disorders. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from The University of Texas at Austin and a Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Minnesota. She is a certified adult and gerontological nurse practitioner and has practiced in a variety of specialties throughout her career, including neurology, cardiology, and gerontology. Dr. Matulis is a graduate of the Parkinson’s Foundation’s inaugural Nurse Practitioner Fellowship program, which concluded in June of 2023, and she practices in the Movement Disorders Division at the Neurological Institute of New York, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York, New York. Her clinical focus is in neuromodulation in Parkinson's disease, specifically deep brain stimulation (DBS), and her interests center around nurse practitioner specialty education in movement disorders.

Caitlin McCarthy, LMSW

Licensed Master Social Worker
Division of General Neurology, Division of Child Neurology, and Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease
Caitlin McCarthy, LMSW is a Licensed Master Social Worker in the Division of Division of General Neurology, Division of Child Neurology, and Division of Stroke and Cerebrovascular Disease. She is a graduate of Columbia University School of Social Work. She is joining us from a social work position at a not-for-profit law firm, The Children’s Law Center, where she worked with attorneys who represented children in Brooklyn Family Court. While there, Caitlin provided social work support in the form of conducting comprehensive assessments regarding safety, mental health, education, and service needs. She connected children and families to all appropriate services and was a staunch advocate for client and family needs. Caitlin also has work experience in systems such as foster care and adoption agencies, New York Presbyterian’s Child Advocacy Center, and government organizations such as the Administration for Children’s Services.

Anya Revah-Politi, MS, CGC

Assistant Professor of Genetic Counseling    
Division of Neuromuscular Medicine
Anya Revah-Politi, MS, CGC is an Assistant Professor in Genetic Counseling in the Department of Neurology at CUIMC. Her role includes recruiting patients with neurogenetic disorders into the Precision Neurotherapeutics Program.

Anya is originally from Mexico City and completed her Genetic Counseling graduate education at Boston University. She is an ABGC board-certified genetic counselor with over 16 years of experience in clinical and laboratory genetic counseling, as well as academic research. She joined CUIMC in 2015 as a research genetic counselor at the Institute for Genomic Medicine (IGM), and in 2018 became a clinical laboratory genetic counselor at the Precision Genomics Laboratory (PGL). As of 2023, she joined the Department of Neurology as part of a new Precision Neurotherapeutics Program. The goal of this program is to identify patients with neurogenetic conditions who have mutations that are amenable potential genetic therapy development.

Anya brings a wealth of expertise and dedication to her work, contributing significantly to the fields of genetic counseling and neurogenetics. She is trilingual in English, Spanish, and French.