Our board is comprised of a well-rounded group of individuals with a special interest in this area, including mental health professionals, family members of the affected, and dedicated volunteers from our groups who have contributed priceless time to building and maintaining our organization. Click on a board member name to read their bio.

Rebecca Finn, MD, MPH
Chair

Tory Masters
Vice Chair

David Brody, MD
Medical Advisor

David J. Hellerstein, MD
Medical Advisor

Michael McKay, MBA
Treasurer

Dan Hess
Board Member

Adina Taubman
Board Member

Nathan Maratas
Board Member

Suzanne Gannon
Board Member

Allen Shelton
Board Member

Ex Officio

Henry Rudolph
Director of Operations

Board Member Bios

Tory Masters, CPS, CPRP spent years as a senior producer and programmer for ABC News and Good Morning America. She then co-founded The Intrepid New Yorker, a corporate relocation consulting firm for expatriates. Currently, she is a certified peer-specialist (CPS) and Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner (CPRP) who works with individuals and families struggling to find a path toward recovery from a mental health disorder. Tory worked for 5 years as a peer specialist at Hands Across Long Island (HALI) a mental health agency that utilizes Personal Recovery-Oriented Services (PROS) to assist individuals with severe psychiatric and substance abuse disorders return to productive lives in their communities. Throughout, she has facilitated and run facilitator trainings and continuing education workshops for MDSG-NY.

David Brody, MD a psychiatrist in private practice in New York City, joined the MDSG-NY board in 2018. His association with MDSG-NY goes back many years when as the chief of the outpatient psychiatry service at Beth Israel, he worked closely with Howard Smith, one of the founders of MDSG-NY, to facilitate access to meeting space and to deliver public lectures on psychiatric medication. Dr. Brody is appointed to the clinical faculty of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai and to the voluntary medical staff of Mt. Sinai Beth Israel and Lenox Hill hospitals. The focus of his practice is medication treatment of psychiatric disorders in adults.

David J. Hellerstein, MD David J. Hellerstein, MD has been on the MDSG-NY board since 2009. He has a psychiatry and psychopharmacology private practice in New York and is a research psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, and a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University.

He specializes in the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders and conducts studies on psychedelic drugs as treatments of depression and other disorders at Columbia’s Depression Evaluation Service. He has published many scientific articles on subjects including psychopharmacology, supportive psychotherapy, and behavioral activation therapy.

Dr. Hellerstein has also received national recognition for his literary writing. His books include Battles of Life and Death (essays about medical training), Loving Touches (a novel), and A Family of Doctors (a memoir of five generations of doctors in one family). He writes a blog, “Heal Your Brain” for psychology Today. His 2011 book, Heal Your Brain: How the New Neuropsychiatry Can Help You Go From Better to Well (Johns Hopkins University Press) was praised by Kay Jamison as “a lucid and practical guide to the brain and how it can go awry.”

Michael McKay, MBA came to MDSG-NY through the Friends and Family group and has been the Treasurer for the last 20 years. He also assumed some duties of an unpaid administrator and assembles the newsletter. After 40 years as Director of Finance and Administration for several libraries and visual arts organizations, Michael retired. Michael earned master’s degrees in Library Science and Business Administration.

Rebecca Finn, MD, MPH obtained her medical degree in Cleveland and a Master’s in Public Health in Albany. After completing her training, she then returned to New York City to be closer to her family. She joined The Mood Disorders Support Group, Inc. in 2008, then became a facilitator, and site director and subsequently Vice Chair. As a facilitator she has become a professional peer support specialist using her experience to help others.

Adina Taubman is an actress, a playwright, a teacher, and an activist. She has been a member of MDSG-NY since 2010. She became a facilitator in 2011 and a coordinator for the West Side location in 2014. She received her B.A. in Humanities from Sarah Lawrence College and her M.F.A. in Acting from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. She is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre Company. Adina lives with her husband and two daughters in Morningside Heights.

Nathan Maratas arrived at MDSG-NY in 2007 and began facilitating in 2010. A California native who received his B.S. in Business Administration from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, he is an event planner who prides himself on the chic happenings he produces for clients in the fashion and luxury goods industries. In addition to facilitating, Nathan contributes his professional expertise to MDSG-NY by coordinating its end-of-year party as well as the training and continuing education of the organization’s facilitators. He is also an active recruiter of new volunteers.

Dan Hess Daniel Hess graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology. Dan became a facilitator in 2013, then went on to serve as site coordinator and co-coordinator of the lecture series in the following years. After a brief hiatus, which coincided with working at a non-profit serving the developmentally disabled and taking care of his family, he returned to facilitating. In the Zoom era Dan has worked tirelessly in almost every aspect of the organization, including running groups for facilitators and making website updates. He is now assisting with our social media platforms and taking over editorial responsibilities of the MOODS newsletter, for which he is also a contributing writer. Dan is recently married and lives in the Bronx with his wife.

Allen Shelton is a 30 year veteran educator and community activist. Allen is also an ordained Presbyterian minister. He is now in his 22nd year of pastoral ministry, currently serving a Northern New Jersey congregation. He is also the Executive Director of the Good Success Academies, an Organization he founded in 2010. Allen began attending MDSG in 2011 and became a facilitator in 2018. Allen received a BA in Economics from Columbia University and a Masters of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary.

Henry Rudoph Native New Yorker Henry Rudolph’s assumption of the role of MDSG-NY’s director of operations coincided with Covid-19 lock-down of New York City, when, in a week’s time, with his leadership volunteers migrated the organization’s entire weekly schedule of in-person meetings onto Zoom. Subsequently, to meet the mental health demands of individuals well beyond the Tri-State area who have been affected by the pandemic and its protocols, he has spearheaded the addition of three other weekly or bi-weekly meetings to the schedule. Previously a facilitator and site director who joined MDSG-NY in 2008, he draws on the logistics, technology, and customer service skills he honed in patient advocacy, and in the travel and aviation sectors.