The Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC) is a society dedicated to facilitating communication and collaboration between implementation research teams, researchers, and community providers. SIRC aims to bring together researchers and stakeholders committed to the rigorous evaluation of the implementation of evidence-based interventions.
History and Inspiration
Some years ago, Evidence-Based Interventions (EBIs) were unusual. Most clinicians provided eclectic treatment that had never been evaluated empirically. Over the past 50 years, many treatments have been tested and evidence-based treatments evolved. In the process, rigorous methodologies were developed for evaluating the process and outcomes of EBIs. Historically, there was little interest in the community to use EBIs. Over the past two decades, collaboration with clinicians and policymakers has increased support for EBIs. Now community providers need to learn and use EBIs. Researchers, universities, and training organizations have begun consulting on and researching how to meet this demand. It is time for training and implementation strategies to be held to the same empirical standard as the interventions themselves. Otherwise, the implementation of EBIs can not be sustained.
Fortunately, implementation research teams are taking on this challenge. They have developed creative and cutting-edge ideas to successfully train and implement EBIs, as well as new methodological approaches to evaluate the results. Little has been published and often these teams aren’t aware of each others’ progress. This lack of dialogue is leading to unnecessary repetition of work and the absence of common methods, measures, and standards for implementation research. The goal of SIRC is to facilitate communication and collaboration among implementation research teams, researchers, and community providers. Our goal is successful models of EBI implementation, but efficient but rigorous methodologies to evaluate the process and outcomes of further implementation innovation. In addition to the conferences, we have created a community of stakeholders interested in implementation research, the SIRC Network of Expertise. We are also developing this website to disseminate important publications, presentations, instruments, etc.
Current Board Members
Current President: Bo Kim, Ph.D. Dr. Kim is an Investigator at the VA Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Bo directs the evaluation core of the VA Behavioral Health Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) Program and co-leads the implementation core of the VA Bridging the Care Continuum QUERI Program. Bo’s research interests are in applying interdisciplinary methodologies toward studying the quality and implementation of health and related services, such as for her QUERI grant in partnership with the VA Homeless Programs Office that evaluates the implementation of VA’s efforts to improve access to legal services for veterans.
Past President: Suzanne (“Sue”) Kerns, PhD. The SIRC president plans the next conference, represents SIRC, calls meetings, oversees initiatives and coordinates the other officers. Dr. Sue Kerns is a clinical community psychologist, professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado and the Director of Transformative Research at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect. Sue’s research, teaching, and clinical experiences focus on ways to improve the quality and effectiveness of child and family mental health services in real world settings to maximize public health impact. Thus, much of her focus is on enhancing the wellbeing of children and families through ensuring access to proven-effective treatment approaches, including examining the acquisition, implementation, adaptation, and sustainability of evidence-based practices.
Past President: Byron Powell, PhD, LCSW. Dr. Byron Powell is an Assistant Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Mental Health Services Research at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Byron’s research focuses on efforts to improve the quality of behavioral health and social services. His scholarship has focused on barriers and facilitators to implementing evidence-based practices; designing, tailoring, and assessing the effectiveness of implementation strategies; and advancing implementation research methods.
Past President: Sara J. Landes, PhD. Dr. Sara Landes is currently an associate professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the Center for Implementation Research and the Associate Director of the Behavioral Health QUERI and a clinical psychologist in the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System. Her research interests are in implementing evidence-based psychotherapies in large health care systems such as the VA, with a focus on treatments for suicide.
Founder and Past-President: Kate Comtois, PhD, MPH. Dr. Kate Comtois is a full professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. She is an EBP Champion as she directs a clinic in which she has been implementing EBPs as well as an Intermediary – providing training and consultation on Dialectical Behavior Therapy implementation. She is the founder of SIRC and was PI of the NIMH conference grant from which SIRC began.
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Secretary: Sean Arayasirikul, PhD. The secretary schedules meetings, takes minutes, tracks tasks, monitors the website and sircimplementation@gmail.com email. Dr. Sean Arayasirikul is a Medical Sociologist and Associate Professor In-Residence at the University of California, Irvine in the Department of Health, Society, and Behavior. Their research is focused on the development and implementation of digital health interventions in clinical and nontraditional settings to improve engagement in health care among sexual and gender minoritized communities.
Student Secretary Chair: James Merle. The Student Secretary Officer assists the secretary by taking minutes, managing emails, and organizing officer meetings. James is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Utah School of Medicine, where he contributes to implementation science across a broad spectrum of federally-funded cardiovascular and mental health implementation and hybrid implementation-effectiveness trials. The content of his work is on improving implementation outcomes around health disparities, including cancer symptom management, HIV prevention, and reducing cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and pediatric obesity.
Treasurer: Gazi Azad, PhD. The treasurer manages the budget and accounts and forecasts funds for future conferences and initiatives. Dr. Azad is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Gazi’s program of research uses the principles of implementation science to optimize service delivery across systems of care for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Additional areas of expertise include community-embedded research, mixed methods, and diversity, equity, and inclusivity in service provision.
Membership Chair: Faith Summersett Williams, PhD. The membership chair oversees membership, collects dues, and conducts initiatives to increase membership of under-represented groups. Dr. Faith Summersett Williams is a Research Assistant Professor in Pediatrics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. More specifically, she leads the research portfolio for the Substance Use and Prevention Program (in the Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She is the founder and director of the Implementation science + Health Equity Advancement Lab (I+HEAL) and core faculty of the Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science (CDIS) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is trained as a pediatric clinician-scientist, with expertise in the learning health system model, dissemination and implementation (D&I) science methods, and health equity and justice frameworks.
Student Membership Chair: Helen Etya’ale. The Student Membership Officer assists the Membership Chair with membership communications and conducting membership outreach in the service of reaching membership targets. Helen Etya’ale is a second year PhD student in public health sciences at Washington University in St Louis, with a focus on implementation science. She completed her BS at Calvin University and MPH at Emory University. Her research focuses on enhancing the participation of recipients of care and communities in improving health service delivery at primary healthcare facilities in sub-Saharan Africa.
Community Engagement Chair: Sapana Patel, PhD. The Community Engagement Chair is responsible for working with SIRC board members to foster connections and collaborations between the organization and members of the community, practitioners, and researchers. Dr. Sapana Patel is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry), Director of Implementation Science at the Center for Practice Innovations at Columbia Psychiatry and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Dr. Patel is a bilingual (Spanish-speaking) Indian American clinical psychologist and services researcher whose work focuses on developing interventions and novel service-delivery approaches to increase access and quality of care for individuals facing health and behavioral health challenges.
Investigator Network Chair: Nicole Stadnick, PhD, MPH. The Investigator Network Chair works closely with other network chairs to plan mentoring, training, and networking opportunities for Established, New, and Trainee Investigators. Dr. Nicole Stadnick is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, Director of Dissemination and Evaluation of the UC San Diego Dissemination and Implementation Science Center, researcher at the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, and a licensed psychologist. She has received NIH-funded fellowships from the Child, Intervention, Prevention, and Services Research Mentoring Network (2015-2016), the Implementation Research Institute (2017-2018), and the Mixed Methods Training Program for the Health Sciences (2019-2020). She leads community-engaged, cross-system health services and implementation research for individuals with complex health clinical presentations served in community settings including federally qualified health centers, low-and-middle income countries, publicly-funded mental health services, and HIV/AIDS care programs. Her work is funded by NIMH, NHLBI, NIEHS, NIAID, NIMHD, state, and private foundations.
Implementation Practice and Support Network (IPSN) Chair: Rachel Kim, PhD. In collaboration with the IPSN Trainee Chair, this role oversees the Implementation Practice & Support Network (IPSN), which consists of people involved in implementing and supporting the implementation of evidence-based practices in real-world settings. Dr. Kim is the Senior Director of Implementation and Associate Director of Training at the Baker Center for Children and Families, a Harvard Medical School affiliate. She leads an intermediary team that partners with community organizations and systems to enhance the quality of behavioral health services for children and families.
Sponsorship Chair: Kate Hyzak, PhD. Dr. Hyzak is the Provost’s tenure track Fellow-to-Assistant Professor research faculty member in the Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation in the College of Medicine at The Ohio State University. She is one of the few implementation scientists nationally whose research is centered on accelerating the reach, implementation, and sustainment of interventions for individuals living with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rehabilitation and community-based settings. Specifically, her program of research is focused on co-developing and investigating multilevel implementation strategies designed to integrate neurologic-informed care into community-based behavioral health treatment. Dr. Hyzak deeply enjoys conducting multidisciplinary team science and fostering community partnerships to address system-level challenges to providing optimal care and achieving heath equity for adults living with chronic brain injury and brain injury-related comorbidities.
Student Practitioner Network Chair: Jacob Tempchin. The Student Practitioner Network Chair provides support for all PN subnetwork meetings, activities, and collaborates with the PN Chair and subnetwork leaders to promote implementation practitioners in SIRC activities, including the conference and PN special initiatives. Jake Tempchin is a third year doctoral student in clinical psychology at the University of Memphis. He earned an M.S. in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, an advanced certificate in Comparative Effectiveness & Implementation Research Training from the New York University School of Medicine, and a B.A. in philosophy from Princeton University. Jake’s primary career ambition is to facilitate the adaptation and implementation of brief behavioral health interventions in primary care and community settings.
Social Chair: Margaret Crane, PhD. The social chair organizes and coordinates SIRC social events during the SIRC conference, including dinners, fun runs, and other activities. In addition, the social chair organizes events for SIRC members to gather across the year and while attending other conferences. Dr. Crane is a postdoctoral implementation science fellow at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University’s BRIDGE program. Her research focuses on how to increase the accessibility of evidence-based practices through policies to fund these programs, as well as strategies to increase consumer demand for EBPs.
Communications Chair: Alayna Park, PhD. The Communications Chair of SIRC helps to disseminate news and events of the organization via our email listserv and social media. Dr. Alayna Park is a licensed psychologist and an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. She trained as an intervention and implementation scientist in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her community-engaged research focuses on identifying and testing strategies for improving the accessibility, quality, and effectiveness of public-sector mental health services for racial-ethnic minoritized youths.
Student Communications Chair: Tessa Palafu. The Student Communications Officer assists the Communications Chair with representing SIRC in the social media landscape, as well as the mailing list and website. Tessa Palafu (she/her) is an Implementation Research Assistant at The Baker Center for Children and Families, Implementation Research Division. Her research interests include understanding Historical Trauma in Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) populations, developing culturally grounded approaches to mental health services for NHPI, and using implementation science to improve the wellbeing of underserved communities. Through her work at the Baker Center, Tessa has supported a variety of projects related to treatment fidelity, understanding predictors of measurement-based care use for clinicians, and looking at barriers and facilitators to implementing a substance use prevention program within a school district.
Technology Chair: James Lee, PhD, BCBA-D. The technology chair oversees and programs the website and related online initiatives. James Lee is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Seattle Children’s Autism Center. His research focuses on increasing service access among marginalized families of young autistic children in publicly-funded Part-C early intervention system. Currently, he is funded by the KL2 Multidisciplinary Clinical Research Career Development Award to develop an implementation toolkit to enhance cultural responsiveness in EBP delivery among marginalized families in early intervention.
Student Representatives: Linda Guzman & Hannah Cheng. Student representatives lead the Trainee Network, the mentorship program, develop resources to meet student needs, and provide support to the SIRC officers as needed to maximize SIRC conferences and initiatives.
Linda Guzman, PhD., is a postdoctoral implementation science fellow at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University’s BRIDGE Program. She earned her clinical psychology Ph.D. and MA from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and obtained her BA in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She studies culturally responsive behavioral interventions that are feasible and acceptable for Latinx populations.
Hannah Cheng, is currently part of the Stanford Center for Dissemination and Implementation, where she dedicates her time to learning about how to effectively and efficiently improve access to evidence-based addiction treatments. Starting this fall, Hannah will be a first-year PhD student in the Health Sciences Integrated Program at Northwestern University. Her long-term goal is to leverage implementation science to improve equitable patient access to evidence-based mental health services in the United States and globally.
Conference Chair: Geetha Gopalan. The conference chair plans the biennial SIRC conference, including selecting the location, theme, and keynote speakers and organizing preconference workshops and the call for abstracts. Geetha Gopalan is an Associate Professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, City University of New York. Her research focuses on increasing the ability of families impacted by poverty to access and engage in evidence-based practices which enhance children’s mental health and family functioning Her direct clinical practice experience, spanning over 10 years in children’s mental health and child welfare services, drives this scholarship towards a heavy emphasis on prioritizing the needs and interests of consumers (e.g., caregivers, youth) as well as designing and evaluating interventions which can easily engage families and be implemented in low-resource, “real-world” contexts.
Sponsors
Learn more about our sponsorship levels (Champion, Collaborator, Partner & Friend) here. We are deeply grateful to our current sponsors:
