.png)
Get To Know Us
Meet Our Health Professionals
At Alaska Treatment Center, our practitioners and friendly staff will ensure you feel comfortable and well-informed every step of the way. We’re a group of professional care practitioners whose mission is to provide the highest level of healthcare to the State of Alaska, Seattle, WA, Worcester, MA, and Miramar, FL. Meet our staff members, ready to serve you.
Dr. David Ampong, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC
Advanced Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner and Addiction Specialist
Education
Dr. Ampong goes by David. He earned his undergraduate baccalaureate in health science, focusing on cell biology, from Anna Maria College and a nursing degree from Becker College in Massachusetts. He obtained a master's degree specializing in business and administration from Aspen University. He earned a master's and doctoral degree in psychiatric mental health nursing from the University of Alaska Anchorage. He completed most of his two years of advanced psychiatric clinical practicum at Alaska Psychiatric Institute and the rest in outpatient settings. He completed a postgraduate certificate training to teach medicine program at Harvard medical school.
Clinical Experience
Dr. Ampong was a mental health counselor for the State of Massachusetts Psychiatric Institution (Glavine Regional Center) for seven years before earning his nursing degree. He has worked in medical-surgical (multiple places in MA and AK), mental health (PAMC, Ak), and addiction units (Roger Williams Medical Center, RI) for the past ten years. He joined academia in 2014 and has been teaching and working as a psychiatric nurse practitioner specializing in addiction medicine. His doctoral project was focused on outpatient detoxification and its implication for practice.
Dr. Ampong is an academic and practitioner who bridges the gap between research and practice. He is well-rounded and works with individuals from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. His recent research promotes outpatient detoxification as the first step to substance treatment. David has published and presented on pharmacogenomics and addiction medicine locally, nationally, and globally at some of the top annual medical conferences, such as ISPN, APNA, etc.
Clinical Services
Dr.Ampong provides psychiatric evaluation and treatment for many mental health issues. He is an expert in using approved FDA-innovative treatments for substance use disorders, alcohol use disorders, bipolar disorders, depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and many other severe mental illnesses.
David sees adolescents and adults ranging from 6 years old to 70 years and above.
Dr. Ashley L. Bolte
Clinical Psychologist
Dr. Bolte is a clinical psychologist with extensive experience in psychological assessment, developmental disorders, and behavioral health across diverse populations. She had specialized training in administering, scoring, and interpreting neuropsychological and cognitive evaluations across a wide age range, along with extensive experience producing detailed clinical reports and diagnostic interpretations.
Dr. Bolte has hands-on clinical and behavioral health experience, including ten years in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) therapy and several years in supervisory roles overseeing behavioral health technicians and treatment implementation. She has conducted clinical intake assessments, developed treatment plans, used evidence-based interventions for children, adolescents, and families, and provided parent training to support skill generalization in home environments.
Dr. Bolte has also worked in educational, residential, and community-based environments supporting individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities, and complex psychosocial needs, helping them build independence, life skills, and social functioning.
Clinical Counselor
Dr. Denny Tranel, PsyD, LCSW, PA-C
Therapist & Psychiatric Medication Management
I work with trauma and abuse survivors, with people living with mental illness, with people battling addiction, both the stopping and the staying stopped, and with people carrying more than one of those at once. I've also been in my own recovery for 38 years, so when you walk in, you're not starting a conversation with a stranger. The people who tend to do well with me are the ones looking for a truth teller, a cheerleader, and someone who will walk with them through the muck.
Most people I work with have been numbing for a long time. Numbing isn't just about drugs and alcohol. Some people make their illness a friend and build a life around it. Others hide behind I'm fine. Some numb with substances, some with food, some by staying so busy they never have to sit still. Whatever the shape, the move is the same away from feeling. The work we do together is about stopping the numbing and starting slowly, safely, to learn how to feel again. That's where healing begins.
I also provide psychiatric medication management. When it's the right fit, we'll talk through what you actually need. I've been in the medical field for 40 years. I started as a medic in the United States Air Force and spent 18 months in Iraq as an independent duty paramedic. From there, I earned my Physician Assistant license and have worked in emergency rooms across the country. That experience shapes how I show up with active-duty service members, veterans, first responders, and people in the medical field. We carry things the rest of the world doesn't see, and we need somewhere safe to put them down.
I know what you have witnessed because I have been there. I don't know exactly what it did to you, but I get it. You don't have to translate yourself with me.
I will not ask you to go where I have not gone myself.
Set up an appointment. Let's talk