kristina
Kristina is a Registered Nurse and a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) student at Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, with a background in maternal child health and psychiatry.
After graduating from New York University, she began her nursing career as a labor and delivery nurse, as well as working alongside midwives in homes, within a free-standing birth center, and in the hospital setting. Her experience in psychiatry includes working with children, young adults, and families facing complex life transitions within both clinic and hospital environments.
Her work is rooted in the sense that each person has a unique path, and working together is a collaborative project in illuminating that path and exploring the potential for change with sensitivity and feeling. Before becoming a nurse, Kristina earned a degree in anthropology from Fordham University, and she remains committed to a reflective approach that considers the lesser tended to elements of our psychic lives and social existence. She sees pregnancy, childbirth and the decision to start a family as deeply personal choices that may bring up questions, anxieties and new ways of being, all of which can be worked through and explored in a therapeutic setting.
Claire
Claire Pettengill is a Registered Nurse, board-certified music therapist (MT-BC), and Certified Child Life Specialist (CCLS) currently completing her Doctor of Nursing Practice as a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner student at Columbia University School of Nursing, graduating in 2027. She currently works as a Clinical Nurse in inpatient geriatric psychiatry at a Manhattan Hospital and completed a clinical placement in Women's Mental Health at Columbia OB/GYN.
Claire spent nearly eight years at Mount Sinai's Kravis Children's Hospital Level IV NICU, where she founded an Interdisciplinary Rounds program and worked closely with mothers navigating the emotional weight of having a baby in intensive care. That experience shaped her clinical focus: she saw firsthand how easily mothers can become clinically invisible while care centered entirely on their infants, and it sparked a deep commitment to supporting women's mental health across every stage of the reproductive lifespan, from puberty through pregnancy, postpartum, and perimenopause.
Claire brings a holistic, relationship-centered approach to care, informed by her background in music therapy and child life, and believes deeply in creating spaces where women and parents feel seen, supported, and never alone, whatever stage of life they're navigating.