Planning Committee

Gregory Aarons, PhD

Gregory Aarons, PhD, is a Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He is also the Director of the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC) at UCSD. Dr. Aarons’ current research focuses on identifying and improving leadership and organizational factors that impact quality of mental health, substance abuse, and HIV services and implementation of evidence-based practice in real-world practice settings. Dr. Aarons and colleagues have developed, and are testing, leadership and organizational development strategies to improve implementation and sustainment of evidence-based practices. He and his colleagues have also developed brief and practical measures of implementation leadership, attitudes toward adopting evidence-based practice, implementation climate, and implementation citizenship behaviors.

Rinad Beidas, PhD

Rinad Beidas, PhD, is an Assistant Professor, Psychology in Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, as well as the leader of ABCT DIS-SIG, Director, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Implementation Science Working Group and Director of Implementation Research. Dr. Beidas’ research research group has two primary foci: (1) improving behavioral health and the quality of behavioral health services for traditionally underserved patients; and (2) advancing the study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice to improve the quality and effectiveness of health services (i.e., implementation science). Dr. Beidas has published approximately 100 articles and is the co-editor of the only book published on EBPs in youth, Dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices in child and adolescent mental health. Dr. Beidas’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health continuously since 2012.

C. Hendricks Brown, PhD

C. Hendricks Brown, PhD, is a Professor at the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Departments of Biostatistics and Mental Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. He is the Director of Northwestern’s Bridges Program and the Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology (Ce-PIM) for Drug Abuse and HIV at NIDA. He is also the Co-director of the CDC Chicago Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence. His work has focused on the prevention of drug abuse, conduct disorder, and depression, and particularly the prevention of suicide. He has a strong interest in developing new methodology for producing generalized knowledge about behavioral interventions, including developing innovative research designs for effectiveness, conducting mediational analyses, designing and carrying out implementation trials and modeling the effects of implementation strategies. He has published extensively on methods for conducting group-based randomized trials and methods to improve implementation research.

Ross Brownson, PhD

Ross Brownson, PhD, is a Professor of Epidemiology at George Warren Brown School of Social Work and Siteman Cancer Center. He is also a Professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences at George Warren Brown School of Social Work and Siteman Cancer Center. Dr. Brownson studies the translation of evidence to public health practice, with a content focus on environmental and policy determinants of physical activity and obesity. Dr. Brownson is the author of 15 books and over 450 peer-reviewed articles. His books include Applied Epidemiology, Evidence-Based Public Health, and Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health.

Bruce Chorpita, PhD

Bruce Chorpita, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also the Program Director of the UCLA Child FIRST Program and the President of PracticeWise, LLC. The aim of Dr. Chorpita’s work has been to advance the effectiveness of current mental health practice technologies for children and adolescents.

 

Katherine Comtois, PhD, MPH

Katherine Comtois, PhD, MPH, is a Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. Dr. Comtois’ career goal is to give suicidal clients and their clinicians their best chance to succeed.  She has been working in the area of health services, treatment development, and clinical trials research to prevent suicide for over 20 years. Her graduate training was in community/clinical psychology and focused on achieving clinical ends through prevention and other system interventions in socio-culturally diverse populations. She has developed and adapted interventions to improve care and clinician willingness to work with suicidal patients including DBT, Collaborative Assessment and Management of Suicidality (CAMS), caring contacts via text message, and Preventing Addiction Related Suicide (PARS).  She has developed DBT-ACES, a program to assist psychiatrically disabled individuals with BPD find and maintain living wage employment and self-sufficiency. Dr. Comtois’ research has been funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the State of Washington, and the Department of Defense.

Shannon Dorsey, PhD

Shannon Dorsey, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Departments of Global Health and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Dorsey’s research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and focuses on implementation of evidence-based treatments (EBTs) for children and adolescents in community settings, both domestically and  globally, in low and middle income countries.

Robert Franks, PhD

Robert Franks, PhD, is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Judge Baker Children’s Center (JBCC). His academic and research interests include implementation science, child mental health systems, child mental health policy, child traumatic stress, public awareness, communications and education, and the dissemination and evaluation of effective and evidence-based child mental health practices. Dr. Franks has provided training, technical assistance, and consultation locally and nationally to provider organizations, state agencies, organizational leaders, and systems of care in the best practices in children’s mental health.

Alison Hamilton, PhD, MPH

Alison Hamilton, PhD, MPH, is Associate Director for Implementation Science at the VA Center for the Study of Healthcare Innovation, Implementation & Policy, based at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, as well as a Research Anthropologist at the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). She directs the VA EMPOWER Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), focused on using implementation science to improve women Veterans’ health and health care. Utilizing qualitative and mixed methodologies, her areas of specialty are women’s health, mental health, substance abuse, HIV risk, trauma, and health services quality improvement.

Henna Hasson, PhD

Henna Hasson, PhD, is an Associate Professor and director of Medical Management Centre at the Karolinska Institutet. She is also the Head of the Unit for Implementation and Evaluation at the Center for Epidemiology and Community Medicine at the Stockholm County Council. Her research focus is on implementation and evaluation of organizational changes. She is particularly interested in the production and use of scientific knowledge, evidence, in health and social care settings.

Kimberly Hoagwood, PhD

Kimberly Hoagwood, PhD, is a Cathy and Stephen Graham Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University Langone Health. She also works with the Division of Child and Family Services and the Office of Performance Measurement and Evaluation at the New York State Office of Mental Health (NYSOMH). Dr. Hoagwood is Director and PI of a new P30 Advanced Center on Implementation and Dissemination Science in States for Children and Families, funded by NIMH, and of the Children’s Technical Assistance Center, funded by NYSOMH.  She is also Principal Investigator on several other major grants and subcontracts, all focused on improving the quality of services for children and families.   Her special emphasis is on parent engagement, empowerment as well as the organizational and policy contexts for children’s mental health services.

Sara Landes, PhD

Sara J. Landes, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine and Core Faculty in the Center for Implementation Research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. She is also a clinical psychologist at Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System and a Core Investigator for Mental Healthcare and Outcomes Research. Dr. Landes’ research focuses on the implementation of evidence-based mental health treatments, with a focus on suicide prevention and larger health care systems. Dr. Landes is currently leading a VA HSR&D-funded project to evaluate the implementation of REACH VET, a suicide prevention intervention with the VA’s Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. She serves on the Military Suicide Research Consortium Dissemination and Implementation Core and is the current President of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC).

Aaron Lyon, PhD

Aaron Lyon, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (UW). He is also the Director of the UW School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center, an implementation research and technical assistance center focused on supporting the use of evidence-based behavioral health practices in the education sector. Dr. Lyon’s research focuses on increasing the accessibility, efficiency, and effectiveness of interventions for children, adolescents, and families; delivered within contexts (e.g., schools) that routinely provide care to chronically underserved populations (e.g., low socioeconomic status and ethnic minority youth).

David Mandell, ScD

David Mandell, ScD, is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He also directs the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research and is the Associate Director of the Center for Autism Research at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The goal of his research is to improve the quality of care individuals with autism receive in their communities. This research is of two types. The first examines, at the state and national level, the effects of different strategies to organize, finance and deliver services on service use patterns and outcomes. The second consists of experimental studies designed to determine the best strategies to successfully implement proven-efficacious practices in community settings.

Robyn Mildon, PhD

Robyn Mildon, PhD, is the founding executive director of the Centre for Evidence and Implementation (CEI). Robyn is an internationally recognised leader with a long standing career focused on the implementation, mainstreaming, and scaling-up of evidence to achieve social impact for children, families and communities in a range of health and human service areas. In addition to her Australian-based work, Robyn has built a portfolio of projects collaborating with both government and non-government agencies in countries such as Singapore, Norway, Sweden, the USA, the UK and New Zealand. Robyn is the co-chair of the Global Evidence and Implementation Summit 2018, was the founding chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the first and second Australian Implementation Conference (AIC), and co-chair for the third Biennial Australasian Implementation Conference. She is also the founding co-chair of the Knowledge Translation and Implementation Group with the Campbell Collaboration. Robyn holds an honorary Associate Professorship with the University of Melbourne.

Joanna Moullin, PhD

Joanna Moullin, PhD, is a Pharmacy Practice Lecturer at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. Dr. Moullin’s research encompasses a number of topics related to conducting implementation research and implementation in practice.  In developing implementation science she has focussed on implementation frameworks, models and theories, implementation research methodologies as well as measurement development, using both factor and Rasch analyses. From an applied perspective, Dr. Moullin is studying the implementation of a range of interventions across diverse clinical and practice settings.

Enola Proctor, PhD

Enola Proctor, PhD, is a Professor at Washington University St. Louis. She is also the Director at the Center for Mental Health Services Research (Washington University St. Louis), the Center for Dissemination and Implementation for the Institute for Public Health, and the Dissemination and Implementation Research Core (DIRC) at Washington University’s Institute for Clinical and Translational Science. Dr. Proctor’s teaching and research are motivated by the question: How do we ensure that people receive the very best possible care? In social work, public health and health care settings ranging from hospitals to community agencies, she studies the processes through which organizations and individual providers can adopt and deliver the most effective programs and interventions.

Lisa Saldana, PhD

Lisa Saldana, PhD, is a Senior Research Scientist at Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene Oregon. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology and has a research emphasis on implementation science and intervention development for children and families involved in public serving systems. Dr. Saldana has developed strategies and standardized assessment tools to facilitate understanding of implementation processes and milestones, and the resources needed to achieve them. She has developed interventions for both child welfare workforce and treatment providers, targeting the use of evidence-based practice throughout all aspects of service delivery.

J.D. Smith, PhD

J.D. Smith, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences with secondary appointments in Preventive Medicine and Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois where he is Associate Director of the Center for Prevention Implementation Methodology for Drug Abuse and HIV, a Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. His research focuses on implementation science and the development and application of methods to translate evidence-based interventions to real-world service delivery systems. He is principal investigator of three effectiveness-implementation hybrid trials funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Department of Agriculture, and the Woman’s Board of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He is a former Fellow of the NIMH-funded Implementation Research Institute; is Associate Editor of Prevention Science; and is Associate Editor for Implementation Research of Families, Systems, and Health.

Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz, PhD

Ulrica von Thiele Schwarz, PhD, is a Senior Researcher at Procome and a Professor in Psychology at Mälardalen University, School of Health, Care and Social welfare. Dr. von Thiele Schwarz professional background is in occupational health, where she worked as a psychologist. Her research focus is on the design, implementation and evaluation of changes in organizations in general, with a specific interest in how we can make evidence more useful in practice.