King
Davis, PhD, served as the Executive Director of the
Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Services, Research,
Policy and Education from 2003 to 2009. Since 2000,
he has held the Robert Lee Sutherland Chair in Mental
Health and Social Policy at the
University of Texas at Austin, School of Social Work.
He was a professor of Public Mental Health Policy
and Planning at the Virginia Commonwealth University
from 1984-2000. As the Galt Scholar, he held full
professorships at each of Virginia’s 3 medical
schools from 1985-1988. From 1998-1999, he was the
holder of the William and Camille Cosby Chair at Howard
University, Washington D.C. Also in 1998, he was appointed
to the Libra Chair in the School of Business and Public
Policy at the University of Maine. He taught at Norfolk
State University School of Social Work from 1974 to
1984. Professor Davis was awarded the Ph.D. from the
Florence G. Heller School for Social Policy and Management
at Brandeis University in 1971. He holds the masters
and bachelor’s degrees in social work (concentration
in mental health) from California State University
in Fresno, California. Dr. Davis is a former Commissioner
of the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental
Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, serving
from 1990 to 1994. At the University of Texas, he
teaches courses in mental health policy, planning,
and theory. Over the past several years, he has been
involved in an analysis of the New Orleans mental
health system. He is conducting a study of the policies
that led to the development of the Central Lunatic
Asylum for Colored Insane, the first mental institution
for Africans in the United States. He is co-author
of The Color of Social Policy, published in March,
2004 by CSWE Press. His most recent articles were
published in the American Psychologist, Journal of
Social Policy, and the International Journal of Social
Policy.
John
Brekke, PhD, Aaron Rosen Lecturer
John
Brekke, PhD, is the Frances Larson Professor of Social
Work Research, and the Associate Dean of Research
at the School of Social Work, University of Southern
California. He co-directs the Hamovitch Center for
Science in the Human Services. Since 1989, Dr. Brekke
has been Principal Investigator on several studies
funded by the National Institute of Mental Health,
one funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, and received a midcareer
K-Award from NIMH. His work focuses on the improvement
of community-based services for individuals diagnosed
with severe mental illness, the integration of biological
aspects of mental disorder into psychosocial rehabilitation
for individuals with schizophrenia, the development
of biosocial models for understanding the outcome
of schizophrenia, and using mixed methods to study
the transformation of community-based mental health
services.
Lawrence
Palinkas, PhD, Opening Plenary Speaker
LAWRENCE
PALINKAS is the Albert G. and Frances Lomas Feldman
Professor of Social Policy and Health in the School
of Social Work at the University of Southern California.
He joined the USC School of Social Work faculty in
2005 after serving as professor of family and preventive
medicine and director of Immigrant/Refugee Health
Studies in the School of Medicine at the University
of California, San Diego. He also holds secondary
appointments as Professor in the Departments of Anthropology
and Preventive Medicine at USC.
A medical anthropologist,
his primary areas of expertise lie within preventive
medicine, cross-cultural medicine and health services
research. Dr. Palinkas is particularly interested
in health disparities, implementation science, community-based
participatory research, and the sociocultural and
environmental determinants of health and health-related
behavior with a focus on disease prevention and health
promotion. His research has included studies of psychosocial
adaptation to extreme environments and manmade disasters;
mental health needs of older adults; cultural explanatory
models of mental illness and service utilization;
evaluation of academic-community research practice
partnerships; and the dissemination and implementation
of evidence-based practices for delivery of mental
health services to children, adolescents and underserved
populations. This work has been funded by the National
Science Foundation, NASA, NIH, the MacArthur Foundation,
and the William T. Grant Foundation. Current research
encompasses mental health services, immigrant health
and global health. He also provides expertise to students
and colleagues in the use of qualitative and mixed
research methods.
Among his scholarly
achievements are the Antarctic Service Medal by the
National Science Foundation and the U.S. Navy in 1989;
deputy chief officer of the Life Sciences Standing
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research in 2002;
chair of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute's
External Advisory Council in 2003; and membership
on committees of the National Research Council, National
Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.
Dr. Palinkas is an elected fellow of the American
Anthropological Association and Society for Applied
Anthropology and the author of more than 250 publications.
David
Takeuchi, PhD, Opening Plenary Speaker
David
Takeuchi is currently a professor in the School of
Social Work and Department of Sociology at the University
of Washington. He is a sociologist who investigates
the social, structural, and cultural contexts associated
with different health outcomes, especially among racial
and ethnic minorities. He also examines the use of
health services in different racial and ethnic communities.
He has published in a wide range of journals in sociology,
public health, medicine, and psychiatry. Takeuchi
regularly participates in a wide range of national
service to professional and community organizations.
He has worked with different federal agencies to include
the social sciences more prominently in their research
agenda such as chairing the Office of Behavioral and
Social Sciences Conference on the “Socio-Cultural
Influences on Health, scientific advisor to the Surgeon
General’s Report on Culture, Race, and Health,
the Institute of Medicine’s Design for National
Report on Disparities, the Decade of Behavior; Task
Force on Violence Prevention, and Task Force on the
Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences in Health. He
has been cited by NIH and other organizations for
his research innovations, scholarly contributions,
collaborative work, and mentoring of junior scholars
especially researchers from underrepresented racial
and ethnic minority groups.
Susan
Kemp, PhD, Invited Symposia Speaker
Susan
P. Kemp Ph.D. is Charles O. Cressey Endowed Associate
Professor at the University of Washington School of
Social Work. Her research and scholarly interests
focus on environmental and community-based interventions,
low-income children and families, public child welfare,
and social work history and theory. She is co-author
of Person-Environment Practice: The Social Ecology
of Interpersonal Helping (Kemp, Whittaker & Tracy:
Aldine de Gruyter, 1997), is co-editor of two forthcoming
books, The Paradox of Urban Space: Inequality and
Transformation in Marginalized Communities (Sutton
and Kemp: Palgrave Macmillan), and Communities, Neighborhoods,
and Health: Expanding the Boundaries of Place (Burton,
Kemp, Leung, Matthews and Takeuchi: Springer), and
has published a range of chapters and articles focusing
on person-place relationships, place-based interventions,
and spatial perspectives in social work practice and
social welfare research.
Amy
Hillier, PhD, Invited Symposia Speaker
Through
a stroke of good luck, Amy Hillier learned GIS and
spatial statistical analysis skills while earning
her MSW and PhD in social welfare at the University
of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Social Work. She
currently teaches introductory GIS courses at Penn
in the city planning, urban studies, social work,
and public health programs and serves as a formal
and informal GIS consultant to numerous Philadelphia-based
nonprofits. Her research focuses on the spatial analysis
of public health disparities, including access to
healthful foods and exposure to outdoor advertising.
She has also used historical GIS methods to research
mortgage redlining (http://cml.upenn.edu) and W.E.B.
Du Bois' classic book, The Philadelphia Negro (www.mappingdubois.org)
Dr.
Hassan, the inaugural director of the Center for Innovation
and Research on Veterans and Military Families, is
a retired Air Force officer with 25 years of experience
in military social work and leadership development.
His career has been marked by an interest in administration,
leadership and innovation. Hassan previously served
as deputy head of the Leadership Directorate and director
of the master's degree program in counseling and leadership
at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado
Springs. He was deployed as a member of a combat stress
control team during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004.
Hassan holds more than a decade of teaching experiences
at the graduate and undergraduate levels, including
courses in social work, behavioral sciences and leadership.
He has special expertise in conceptualization of competencies
and learning outcomes. His current research focus
is social work with veterans and military families.
Hassan's experiences in creating change in clients
have led to his interests in facilitating change in
leaders, teachers and organizations. His scholarship
is diverse with publications and presentations in
leadership, higher education administration, military
and pedagogy. He currently serves as an appointed
member to the Council on Social Work Education's Commission
on Professional Development.
Jan
Nissly, PhD, Invited Symposia Speaker
Dr.
Nissly serves as the first full-time researcher in
the School of Social Work’s Center for Innovation
and Research on Veterans and Military Families (CIR).
With particular interest in disaster, stress and trauma,
and workforce issues, she has published and presented
in a variety of areas, including occupational stress
and worker well-being, mental health screening, and
stress-related intervention, and has served as an
investigator on eight sponsored projects. Nissly’s
research interests focus on preparing practitioners
to meet the needs of returning service members and
their families, provision of supports and services
to families of deployed and returning service members,
and on innovative approaches to identifying and engaging
at-risk veterans into community services. She is currently
leading an evaluation of online training methods for
the preparation of military-related mental health
practitioners. A former social work practitioner,
Nissly possesses 20 years of experience in the fields
of mental health and veteran’s issues. Specializing
in crisis intervention and stress response, she practiced
in acute psychiatry, PTSD treatment, emergency response,
and homeless services within the Department of Veterans
Affairs and in two civilian hospital trauma units.
Howard
Walters, MSS/MSLP, Invited Symposia Moderator
Howard
M. Walters, M.S.S./M.S.L.P. is a Project Coordinator
at the OMG Center with the New Connections program.
Mr. Walters assists in organizing trainings and professional
development opportunities for junior faculty members
and mid-career consultants who receive grants from
New Connections. He utilizes his background and sensitivity
to issues of diversity to his additional work in the
areas of qualitative and quantitative data analysis,
program/project evaluation and policy analysis.
Mr. Walters holds
Masters degrees in Social Service and Law and Social
Policy, both from Bryn Mawr College, and an undergraduate
degree in Sociology from Millikin University.
Lisa
Colarossi, PhD, Invited Symposia Presenter
Lisa
Colarossi is the director of research and evaluation
at Planned Parenthood of New York City. She is a licensed
clinical social worker and developmental psychologist
and received her Ph.D. from The University of Michigan.
Her training and background involves interdisciplinary
research collaborations between social service, medical
and legal systems. She has received research awards
from the National Association of Social Workers and
the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Women
and Gender at The University of Michigan; and was
a Robert Wood Johnson Senior Research Consultant.
She has conducted and published research studies using
a variety of methods from experimental and evaluative
research to longitudinal survey research and qualitative
exploratory research. She has been an associate professor
of social work and her research is in the area of
adolescent and early adult development, violence against
women and mental and reproductive health.
Raphael
Travis Jr., DrPH, LCSW is an assistant professor in
the School of Social Work at Texas State University
– San Marcos. He teaches both undergraduate
and graduate students. Dr. Travis blends direct social
work practice and public health research experience
in his current research examining the principles of
positive youth development as they relate to out-of-school
time (OST) programs, juvenile justice and reentry,
and Hip-Hop culture. Dr. Travis is currently examining
the utility of empowerment themes within Hip-Hop culture
among adolescents and social work students; young
people’s experiences in a newly formed teen
court; youth development outcomes as they relate to
juvenile justice reentry; and development enhancing
features of a community-coalition to promote positive
youth development. Each area of research by Dr. Travis
is grounded in trying to better understand positive
influences to the developmental well-being of adolescents
(i.e., emotionally, physically, socially, and cognitively).
Particular attention is paid to vulnerable and diverse
populations.
Daphne
Watkins, PhD, Invited Symposia Presenter
Daphne
C. Watkins is an Assistant Professor at the School
of Social Work and a Faculty Associate at the Program
for Research on Black Americans at the University
of Michigan. Her interests include gender disparities
in mental disorders; health education and behavior;
and intervention research. An anthropologist and health
educator by training, her work uses quantitative and
qualitative methodologies to explore how gender role
socialization influences mental health over the life
course for black males. Her research agenda aims to
(1) use evidence-based strategies to improve the physical
and mental health of black males, and (2) increase
knowledge about the relationship between culture,
gender, and the social determinants that place black
males at high risk for poor health status.
Dr. Watkins received
a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the
University of North Carolina at Wilmington and a doctorate
in Health Education from Texas A&M University.
Upon receipt of her doctorate, she completed a National
Institute of Mental Health-sponsored postdoctoral
fellowship at the Institute for Social Research, Survey
Research Center and a National Institutes of Health
career development award at the Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology at the University of Michigan Medical
School.
Edith
Arrington, PhD, Invited Symposia Discussant
Edith
G. Arrington is the Deputy Director of the New Connections
program and a Project Manager at OMG Center for Collaborative
Learning. A licensed psychologist, Dr. Arrington’s
general research, consulting, and writing interests
are in the areas of race, identity, and diversity;
personal and leadership development; and the well-being
of youth and adults across critical contexts.
Dr. Arrington
graduated with an A.B. in Psychology and Sociology
from Duke University. She holds a Master's degree
in Psychology from the University of Virginia as well
as a Ph.D. in School, Community, and Clinical Child
Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate
School of Education.
Online
Job Registry and Employer Job Posting Available Online
King
Davis, PhD, served as the Executive Director of the
Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Services, Research,
Policy and Education from 2003 to 2009. Since 2000,
he has held the Robert Lee Sutherland Chair in Mental
Health and Social Policy at the
John
Brekke, PhD, is the Frances Larson Professor of Social
Work Research, and the Associate Dean of Research
at the School of Social Work, University of Southern
California. He co-directs the Hamovitch Center for
Science in the Human Services. Since 1989, Dr. Brekke
has been Principal Investigator on several studies
funded by the National Institute of Mental Health,
one funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration, and received a midcareer
K-Award from NIMH. His work focuses on the improvement
of community-based services for individuals diagnosed
with severe mental illness, the integration of biological
aspects of mental disorder into psychosocial rehabilitation
for individuals with schizophrenia, the development
of biosocial models for understanding the outcome
of schizophrenia, and using mixed methods to study
the transformation of community-based mental health
services.
LAWRENCE
PALINKAS is the Albert G. and Frances Lomas Feldman
Professor of Social Policy and Health in the School
of Social Work at the University of Southern California.
He joined the USC School of Social Work faculty in
2005 after serving as professor of family and preventive
medicine and director of Immigrant/Refugee Health
Studies in the School of Medicine at the University
of California, San Diego. He also holds secondary
appointments as Professor in the Departments of Anthropology
and Preventive Medicine at USC.
David
Takeuchi is currently a professor in the School of
Social Work and Department of Sociology at the University
of Washington. He is a sociologist who investigates
the social, structural, and cultural contexts associated
with different health outcomes, especially among racial
and ethnic minorities. He also examines the use of
health services in different racial and ethnic communities.
He has published in a wide range of journals in sociology,
public health, medicine, and psychiatry. Takeuchi
regularly participates in a wide range of national
service to professional and community organizations.
He has worked with different federal agencies to include
the social sciences more prominently in their research
agenda such as chairing the Office of Behavioral and
Social Sciences Conference on the “Socio-Cultural
Influences on Health, scientific advisor to the Surgeon
General’s Report on Culture, Race, and Health,
the Institute of Medicine’s Design for National
Report on Disparities, the Decade of Behavior; Task
Force on Violence Prevention, and Task Force on the
Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences in Health. He
has been cited by NIH and other organizations for
his research innovations, scholarly contributions,
collaborative work, and mentoring of junior scholars
especially researchers from underrepresented racial
and ethnic minority groups. 
Susan
P. Kemp Ph.D. is Charles O. Cressey Endowed Associate
Professor at the University of Washington School of
Social Work. Her research and scholarly interests
focus on environmental and community-based interventions,
low-income children and families, public child welfare,
and social work history and theory. She is co-author
of Person-Environment Practice: The Social Ecology
of Interpersonal Helping (Kemp, Whittaker & Tracy:
Aldine de Gruyter, 1997), is co-editor of two forthcoming
books, The Paradox of Urban Space: Inequality and
Transformation in Marginalized Communities (Sutton
and Kemp: Palgrave Macmillan), and Communities, Neighborhoods,
and Health: Expanding the Boundaries of Place (Burton,
Kemp, Leung, Matthews and Takeuchi: Springer), and
has published a range of chapters and articles focusing
on person-place relationships, place-based interventions,
and spatial perspectives in social work practice and
social welfare research. 
Through
a stroke of good luck, Amy Hillier learned GIS and
spatial statistical analysis skills while earning
her MSW and PhD in social welfare at the University
of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Social Work. She
currently teaches introductory GIS courses at Penn
in the city planning, urban studies, social work,
and public health programs and serves as a formal
and informal GIS consultant to numerous Philadelphia-based
nonprofits. Her research focuses on the spatial analysis
of public health disparities, including access to
healthful foods and exposure to outdoor advertising.
She has also used historical GIS methods to research
mortgage redlining (http://cml.upenn.edu) and W.E.B.
Du Bois' classic book, The Philadelphia Negro (www.mappingdubois.org)
Dr.
Hassan, the inaugural director of the Center for Innovation
and Research on Veterans and Military Families, is
a retired Air Force officer with 25 years of experience
in military social work and leadership development.
His career has been marked by an interest in administration,
leadership and innovation. Hassan previously served
as deputy head of the Leadership Directorate and director
of the master's degree program in counseling and leadership
at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado
Springs. He was deployed as a member of a combat stress
control team during Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004.
Hassan holds more than a decade of teaching experiences
at the graduate and undergraduate levels, including
courses in social work, behavioral sciences and leadership.
He has special expertise in conceptualization of competencies
and learning outcomes. His current research focus
is social work with veterans and military families.
Hassan's experiences in creating change in clients
have led to his interests in facilitating change in
leaders, teachers and organizations. His scholarship
is diverse with publications and presentations in
leadership, higher education administration, military
and pedagogy. He currently serves as an appointed
member to the Council on Social Work Education's Commission
on Professional Development. 
Dr.
Nissly serves as the first full-time researcher in
the School of Social Work’s Center for Innovation
and Research on Veterans and Military Families (CIR).
With particular interest in disaster, stress and trauma,
and workforce issues, she has published and presented
in a variety of areas, including occupational stress
and worker well-being, mental health screening, and
stress-related intervention, and has served as an
investigator on eight sponsored projects. Nissly’s
research interests focus on preparing practitioners
to meet the needs of returning service members and
their families, provision of supports and services
to families of deployed and returning service members,
and on innovative approaches to identifying and engaging
at-risk veterans into community services. She is currently
leading an evaluation of online training methods for
the preparation of military-related mental health
practitioners. A former social work practitioner,
Nissly possesses 20 years of experience in the fields
of mental health and veteran’s issues. Specializing
in crisis intervention and stress response, she practiced
in acute psychiatry, PTSD treatment, emergency response,
and homeless services within the Department of Veterans
Affairs and in two civilian hospital trauma units.
Howard
M. Walters, M.S.S./M.S.L.P. is a Project Coordinator
at the OMG Center with the New Connections program.
Mr. Walters assists in organizing trainings and professional
development opportunities for junior faculty members
and mid-career consultants who receive grants from
New Connections. He utilizes his background and sensitivity
to issues of diversity to his additional work in the
areas of qualitative and quantitative data analysis,
program/project evaluation and policy analysis. 
Lisa
Colarossi is the director of research and evaluation
at Planned Parenthood of New York City. She is a licensed
clinical social worker and developmental psychologist
and received her Ph.D. from The University of Michigan.
Her training and background involves interdisciplinary
research collaborations between social service, medical
and legal systems. She has received research awards
from the National Association of Social Workers and
the Interdisciplinary Center for Research on Women
and Gender at The University of Michigan; and was
a Robert Wood Johnson Senior Research Consultant.
She has conducted and published research studies using
a variety of methods from experimental and evaluative
research to longitudinal survey research and qualitative
exploratory research. She has been an associate professor
of social work and her research is in the area of
adolescent and early adult development, violence against
women and mental and reproductive health. 
Raphael
Travis Jr., DrPH, LCSW is an assistant professor in
the School of Social Work at Texas State University
– San Marcos. He teaches both undergraduate
and graduate students. Dr. Travis blends direct social
work practice and public health research experience
in his current research examining the principles of
positive youth development as they relate to out-of-school
time (OST) programs, juvenile justice and reentry,
and Hip-Hop culture. Dr. Travis is currently examining
the utility of empowerment themes within Hip-Hop culture
among adolescents and social work students; young
people’s experiences in a newly formed teen
court; youth development outcomes as they relate to
juvenile justice reentry; and development enhancing
features of a community-coalition to promote positive
youth development. Each area of research by Dr. Travis
is grounded in trying to better understand positive
influences to the developmental well-being of adolescents
(i.e., emotionally, physically, socially, and cognitively).
Particular attention is paid to vulnerable and diverse
populations.
Daphne
C. Watkins is an Assistant Professor at the School
of Social Work and a Faculty Associate at the Program
for Research on Black Americans at the University
of Michigan. Her interests include gender disparities
in mental disorders; health education and behavior;
and intervention research. An anthropologist and health
educator by training, her work uses quantitative and
qualitative methodologies to explore how gender role
socialization influences mental health over the life
course for black males. Her research agenda aims to
(1) use evidence-based strategies to improve the physical
and mental health of black males, and (2) increase
knowledge about the relationship between culture,
gender, and the social determinants that place black
males at high risk for poor health status. 
Edith
G. Arrington is the Deputy Director of the New Connections
program and a Project Manager at OMG Center for Collaborative
Learning. A licensed psychologist, Dr. Arrington’s
general research, consulting, and writing interests
are in the areas of race, identity, and diversity;
personal and leadership development; and the well-being
of youth and adults across critical contexts. 
