Our interdisciplinary team of experts are athletes. They are some of the top minds in sports medicine and nutrition. They fully understand the pressures athletes face. They know the impact – often hidden – eating disorders bring to training and performance. They are here to help.

GOALS Clinical Treatment Team

Emily Slager, MA, LMHC

Emily (she/her/hers) is an accomplished runner, who has participated in ten consecutive Boston Marathons. She understands the lack of attention on eating disorders and mental health within the athlete population, and is passionate about changing that. She is the director of Walden’s Waltham clinic, where she oversees the clinical and administrative components of GOALS and other eating disorder treatment programs. She previously was director of residential, partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient programs for adolescents and adults at Walden’s Waltham location, and a clinician on Walden’s inpatient eating disorder and psychiatric units. Prior to Walden, Emily worked at Octagon Worldwide representing various professional athletes for the global sports and entertainment marketing firm. She was also an intern at the Women’s Sports Foundation in New York City. Emily earned her master’s degree in counseling psychology from Boston College.

Russell Kennedy, Ph.D.

Dr. Russ (he/him/his) was an all-around gymnast for Syracuse University and has been coaching gymnasts and cheerleaders for the past 30 years. Aside from training as a gymnast, he has studied Brazilian Jiujitsu, Judo and Aikido since his teen years. In addition to working with athletes in the GOALS program, he is the program director of Walden’s Westborough clinic. Dr. Russ also created a program for individuals with intellectual and developmental disorders and works with the Department of Developmental Disabilities. After completing his master’s graduate studies at Boston College in counseling psychology and his doctoral work at William James College in clinical health psychology, he did a combined post-doctoral fellowship at Boston Behavioral Medicine and Tufts Medical Center. Outside of Walden, Dr. Russ works as a coach, lecturer and advisor for performance athletes, teams and governing bodies on eating disorders, disordered eating, sports psychology, peak performance, and leadership.

Kelsey Varzeas, Ed.M., CMPC

Kelsey (she/her/hers) is a clinician with Walden Behavioral Care’s GOALS program. In her work, she acknowledges the unique social, cultural, physical, and mental stressors that athletes face and aims to unite the separation between the sport and clinical worlds. Kelsey feels extremely passionate about addressing anti-fat bias, size-ism, body oppression, and eating disorder awareness in the current culture and sporting world. Kelsey is a Ph.D. candidate at The Ohio State University where her dissertation research explores stress, coping, and body image for female collegiate athletes. She received her Master of Education degree in Counseling with a specialization in Sport and Performance Psychology from Boston University. Upon graduation from Boston University, Kelsey became a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC), which demonstrates the highest standards of professional practice for sport and performance psychology consultants.

Kailah Murphy, MS, RD, LDN

Kailah (she/her/hers) is a registered dietitian (RD) and serves as the dietitian for the GOALS program. As a sports dietitian, she is committed to translating evidence-based nutrition science and identifying individual’s unique psychological and biological needs to work toward each client’s ideal relationship with food. Prior to joining GOALS, Kailah worked with collegiate athletes at the University of Virginia where she gained a deep understanding of the unique challenges athletes face and is passionate about educating individuals and teams on where nutrition fits into overall health and well-being. Kailah earned a bachelor’s of science and master’s of science in nutrition from Boston University and completed her dietetic internship at Good Samaritan Medical Center, UMass Health Alliance, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center and Walden.

GOALS Curriculum Advisors

Paula Quatromoni, DSc, MS, RD, LDN

Dr. Quatromoni is a senior consultant for Walden Behavioral Care and one of the nation’s top minds on the intersection of sports nutrition and eating disorders. As a registered dietitian, she has more than a decade of experience working with athletes with disordered eating and has published several papers on both clinical experiences and qualitative research on the recovery experiences of athletes. Dr. Quatromoni is the Department Chair of Health Sciences and a tenured associate professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Boston University where she maintains an active, funded research program. In 2004, she pioneered the sports nutrition consult service for student athletes at Boston University. Dr. Quatromoni was recently named a 2016 Outstanding Dietetics Educator from the Nutrition and Dietetic Educators and Preceptors (NDEP) Council. She earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Nutrition from the University of Maine at Orono and her Doctorate in Epidemiology from the Boston University School of Public Health.

Jessyca Arthur-Cameselle, EdD, CC-AASP

Dr. Arthur-Cameselle is a consultant to Walden Behavioral Care’s GOALS Program. An experienced clinician trained extensively in clinical sport psychology and techniques used in eating disorder treatment, Jessyca brings sport psychology expertise and previous experience working with hundreds of athletes across the nation. She has five years of experience as a full-time clinician including in positions where she ran eating disorder and behavior change therapy groups in college counseling settings and in a residential treatment center. Dr. Arthur-Cameselle is also a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Western Washington University where she teaches and practices sport psychology. She maintains an active research program in the field of eating disorders in sport, specifically on the topics of onset and recovery from eating disorders among female collegiate athletes. She and Dr. Quatromoni are established collaborators who have co-authored several papers on this topic in the peer-reviewed literature. Dr. Arthur-Cameselle earned her B.S. in Psychology and Kinesiology from the College of William and Mary where she played Division 1 tennis. She earned both her Ed.M. and Ed.D. degrees in counseling psychology from Boston University.