About Me
I am an epidemiologist who studies the prevalence, prevention, and treatment of substance use and mental health disorders. My research has focused on suicide prevention, behavioral health treatment, behavioral health epidemiology, military and veteran health, disasters and community resilience, and crime and justice. I have additional expertise in program evaluation and have co-authored two, freely available workbooks and additional tools to promote evaluation within community-based organizations. I have authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications and my research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Justice, Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, and private foundations. My commentary has been published in various media outlets and I have testified twice before the United States Congress and also before the California State Senate.
I received my B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago and my Ph.D. in psychiatric epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. I then worked for 12 years as a behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation where I received two RAND Gold Medal Awards for my research on suicide prevention and one Presidential Award, RAND’s highest honor, for my work on military and veteran caregivers. Next, I served as Senior Vice President for Research at the Cohen Veterans Network where I established the organization’s research agenda and laid the foundation for conducting research within the network. I then became the inaugural Craig Newmark Fellow at the Bob Woodruff Foundation before returning to RAND in July 2020.
I serve on the Board of Directors of Bastion Community of Resilience in New Orleans, LA and am a member of the School Life and Mission Committee of Canisius High School in Buffalo, NY; the Assessment and Intervention Standards Committee of the American Association of Suicidology; and the National Consortium for Preventing Law Enforcement Suicide.
A full list of my publications can be found here.