Program Faculty

Program faculty consist of a set of Core and Contributing Faculty. Core Program Faculty serve on the Advisory Committee to oversee the training program. In addition, they serve as substantive and methodological resources to the training program (e.g., present seminars and colloquia, serve on Supervisory Committees, provide individual substantive and methodological consultation); teach the prevention science course and integrated seminars, described below; and serve as senior mentors to trainees. All Faculty have major research projects to which trainees may be assigned for their research internships.

Core Faculty

Paula Nurius, Program Director,

Professor of Social Work, received her PhD in Social Welfare and Social Psychology in 1984 from the University of Michigan. Dr. Nurius has expertise in social cognitive models of self-concept development and functioning, stress and coping, and violence against women. Her current research focuses on risk and protective factors relating to women's mental health and prevention of violence and traumatic stress associated with sexual assault and intimate partner violence (IPV). She has served as PI on a number of grants, including NIMH funding and serves as grant reviewer for NIMH. She is engaged in a number of collaborative projects, including study of IPV with the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center, longitudinal analysis of IPV risks and effects among low income women, and sexual violence prevention programming. She is the former Director of the University of Washington's PhD Program in Social Welfare, served as senior mentor and a Governing Board member for the school's Social Work Prevention Research Center, and has served as consultant to and evaluator of doctoral programs nationally.

nurius@u.washington.edu

Richard Catalano,

Professor of Social Work, received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Washington in 1982. He is the Director of the Social Development Research Group (SDRG) and is PI and Co-PI on several federally funded research grants investigating the etiology of adolescent problem behavior and the efficacy of family, school, and community prevention programs. Dr. Catalano is an expert on risk and protective factor models of prevention and on community-based research. His primary specialization is prevention of adolescent problem behaviors including delinquency, substance abuse, and academic failure, and the impact of culture on intervention.

catalano@u.washington.edu

Mark Courtney,

Professor of Social Work, received his PhD from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the UWSSW, Dr. Courtney was the McCormick Tribune Professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and served as the Director of the Chapin Hall Center for Children from 2001 to 2006. Dr. Courtney, a leading expert on child welfare services in the United States, joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Social Work in July 2007 as the Ballmer Chair in Child Well-Being and Director of the new center, Partners for Our Children. He has conducted extensive research on individual, family, and societal contributors to the well-being of children placed in out-of-home care. Mark focuses on applied research; his studies involve active collaboration with multiple stakeholders in the policy and practice communities to determine how to improve children’s services nationally.

David Hawkins,

Kozmetsky Professor of Prevention, Professor of Social Work, and founding Director of Social Development Research Group, received his PhD in Sociology from Northwestern University in 1975. His research focuses on understanding and preventing child and adolescent health and behavior problems. Dr. Hawkins has a long and distinguished record of research identifying risk and protective factors for adolescent problem behaviors, and for developing and testing innovative prevention interventions. He has been PI, Co-PI, or Investigator on numerous federally funded grants, including grants from NIMH. Currently, he is PI or Co-PI on five federally funded research grants.

jdh@u.washington.edu

Robert McMahon,

Professor, Department of Psychology, received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Georgia in 1979. He has published extensively on the development of child conduct problems and interventions for these problems. Dr. McMahon is a member of the core scientific group of the Tobacco Etiology Research Network (TERN) sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a member of the Evaluation Advisory Panel for the "Free To Grow" National Demonstration Project. He has served as a PI on the NIMH Multisite Prevention of Adolescent Conduct Problems project (Fast Track) since its inception in 1990. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the journal "Prevention Science."

mcmahon@u.washington.edu

Diane Morrison,

Professor of Social Work, received her PhD in Social Psychology in 1982. She has been PI, Co-PI, or Investigator on 17 federally funded studies. She is currently co-PI of four studies: a study of young mothers who bore children as teenagers, and their children; a secondary analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health; an experiment examining the effects of alcohol consumption and alcohol expectancies on condom negotiation among women; and a developmental project exploring sexual health education needs among GLBTIQ teens. Her area of expertise is cognitive models of decision making, and contraception and disease prevention behaviors. She has published extensively on these topics.

dmm@u.washington.edu

David Takeuchi,

a sociologist, is currently Professor in the University of Washington School of Social Work and Department of Sociology. Dr. Takeuchi has substantial administrative background including leadership positions with NIMH-funded Centers, academic institutions (UCLA, Indiana University, and University of Washington), non-government associations (American Sociological Association, National Asian Women’s Health Organization, Institute of Medicine), and government organization (National Institutes of Health, Surgeon General’s Office, National Center on Health Statistics). He currently serves as Associate Dean for Research in the School of Social Work. In addition to research and administrative experience, Takeuchi has an extensive background in mentoring junior scholars especially researchers from underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups. He is active in the American Sociological Association’s Minority Fellowship Program, is Co-Director of the NIMH-funded postdoctoral training program, the Family Research Consortium IV, and currently serves as a mentor to graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across the nation.

Dr. Takeuchi has conducted some of the largest community research studies on Asian Americans. He has published on issues related to racial minorities with a special focus on health using epidemiologic and longitudinal data. He has considerable experience in conducting large scale surveys and analyzing large data sets, and is currently the Principal Investigator, along with Margarita Alegria of Cambridge Health Alliance, of the National Latino and Asian American Study (NLAAS). This psychiatric epidemiologic study is the first national study of Asian and Latino ethnic groups and involves a host of measures including psychiatric symptoms and diagnoses, life events, chronic strain, self-esteem, social support, social networks, and demographic factors. It uses a sophisticated systematic stratified sampling method to select interviewees for the study.

dt5@u.washington.edu

Edwina Uehara,

Dean and Professor of Social Work, received her PhD in 1989. She currently is a collaborator with investigators at the NIMH-funded UCLA National Research Center on Asian-American Mental Health (NRCAAMH) at the University of California, Davis and PI on a study of Service Pathways of Asian Americans that is funded by an NIMH grant to the Center. She is an expert on culturally specific models of social support and models of assessing mental health. She has been a leader at the School in launching research involving cultural minorities. Dr. Uehara has served as PI on grants from public and private sources, including NIMH.

eddi@u.washington.edu

Elizabeth Wells,

Research Professor of Social Work and Director of Research Operations (previously in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences) received her PhD in Clinical Psychology. Her research focuses on prevention of HIV among adolescents and adult injection drug users and on prevention and treatment of substance use. She has been PI on a 10-year NIDA-funded longitudinal study of children's health risk behavior, including substance use and sexual behavior and of two studies of brief Motivational Enhancement interventions with adult drug users, one focusing on street cocaine use and the other on HIV and Hepatitis risk behavior among opiate users. She is currently co-PI with Dr. Morrison of a study of health education needs of GLBTQ teens and a co-investigator of a NIDA-funded study of motivational intervention with homeless teens.

bwells@u.washington.edu

 

Contributing Faculty

Michael Arthur,

Research Associate Professor with the School of Social Work, has been an active researcher with The Social Development Research Group since 1991with an extensive research background in adolescent antisocial behavior, state and community prevention systems, and prevention research methodology. His training background in community psychology with postdoctoral training in prevention research from Yale University Department of Psychology position him well as a training resource in community interventions, diffusion, and community adaptation and adoption of preventive interventions. He has been PI, Co-Investigator, or Project Director on multiple projects since 1991, with special emphasis on community level interventions and analysis.

marthur@u.washington.edu

 

Theodore Beauchaine,

Robert Bolles & Yasuko Endo Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, received his doctorate at SUNY Stonybrook in 2000. His primary research interests lie in examining the motivational and emotional substrates of psychopathology in children, particularly the contributions of specific neural systems to behavioral approach, avoidance, and self-regulation, and how individual differences in the functioning of these neural systems give rise to behavior problems, including ADHD, conduct disorder, substance abuse, anxiety, and depression.

Ana Mari Cauce,

Earl Carlson Professor of Psychology, Professor of American Ethnic Studies, and Executive Vice Provost of the University of Washington. She has a long history of research with at-risk minority youth and has focused on at-risk children, adolescents, and families; homeless youth; adolescent substance abuse; and community psychology.

cauce@u.washington.edu

Noel Chrisman,

Professor of Nursing in the Department of Psychosocial and Community Health at the University of Washington. He is the founding professor and current lead advisor of the oldest Graduate Program in Cross Cultural Nursing in the United States (1974) and directed the Graduate Program in Advanced Community Health Nursing from 1989 to 2001, where he continues to lecture and supervise the clinical work of both graduate and undergraduate students. Dr. Chrisman has been active in publications, lectures, and workshops about cross cultural nursing nationally and internationally for more than 30 years. In addition, his work for the past 20 years has been on what is now called "Community-Based Participatory Research." Funded projects have included the Commit trial in the mid 80s; the "Wellness and Spirituality" Project with the Yakama Indian Nation in the early to mid-1990s; the CDC-funded Urban Research Center, "Seattle Partners for Healthy Communities," from 1995-2004; and the CDC-funded REACH 2010 project (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health) from 1999 to the present. His roles in the latter two projects have been as evaluator and consultant.

noelj@u.washington.edu

Tracy Harachi,

Associate Professor of Social Work, received her PhD from the University of Washington in 1991. Her research focus seeks to understand the familial and environmental processes that influence and impact youth, particularly involving immigrants and other communities of color, and to develop or evaluate preventive interventions that support the healthy development of youth within an ecological context. In addition to studies examining youth development, she is interested in ways in which prevention science can be embodied within community systems, for example, through the adoption of efficacious interventions by schools and communities or the creation of surveillance systems on social and behavioral indicators to provide feedback for community planning. She is Principal Investigator on the Cross-Cultural Families project funded by NIMH/NICHD which is a longitudinal study examining the developmental trajectories of Cambodian and Vietnamese children. She is also Co-P.I. and Investigator on two NIDA funded school- and family-based preventive intervention studies. She has extensive experience conducting research within immigrant communities, including overseeing the translation of survey measures into a number of different languages, conducting cognitive pretesting, examining measurement equivalence and recruiting immigrant families to participate in parenting workshops. Her expertise related to issues among the Asian Pacific Islander populations has been utilized by a number of organizations such as the United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Asian American Pacific Islander Youth Development and Violence Prevention Workgroup, Hmong Strengthening Families Project, Japan Ministry of Health and Welfare and Drug Abuse Prevention Center, and Social Services of Cambodia. She is a member of the NIDA Services Research Review Committee-F and has reviewed for SNEM II, as well as specials for NICHD and NIMH.

tharachi@u.washington.edu

Wayne Katon,

Professor of Psychiatry, Director of the Division of Health Services and Epidemiology, and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington Medical School, received his MD from the University of Oregon in 1978 and  served his residency in Psychiatry at the University of Washington. He is Director of an NIMH-funded National Research Service Award Primary Care-Psychiatry Fellowship that has successfully trained psychiatrists and primary care physicians for academic leadership positions. Dr. Katon is internationally renowned for his research on the prevalence of anxiety and depressive disorders in primary care, the relationship of psychiatric disorders to medically unexplained symptoms such as headache and fatigue, and the impact of depression and anxiety on patients with chronic medical illness. In recent years, his research has focused on developing innovative models of integrating mental health professionals and other allied health personnel into primary care to improve the care of patients with major depression and panic disorder. Dr. Katon has been awarded the American Academy of Family Practice Award for Excellence in Teaching in Primary Care numerous times. He also has been awarded the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine Research Award (1993) and the American Psychiatric Association Senior Scholar Health Services Research Award (1999). Dr. Katon has written over 325 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters, as well as Panic Disorder in the Medical Setting, a book for primary care physicians.

Maureen Marcenko,

Associate Professor of Social Work, completed her PhD at McGill University in 1988. She is Director of Policy and Evaluation for the newly formed child welfare center, Partners for Our Children, and an affiliate of the Center on Infant Mental Health. Dr. Marcenko’s research focuses on the well-being of diverse children and families with an emphasis on the development and testing of interventions within public child welfare and other public service systems. Dr. Marcenko is committed to producing research that is rigorous, culturally sensitive, participatory, and easily accessible to consumers, practitioners, and policy makers. She is a Co-Investigator for the Fostering Families Project, an NIMH-funded project designed to test two interventions with young children in foster care and their caregivers.

mmarcenk@u.washington.edu

Peter Pecora,

Senior Director of Research Services for the Casey Family Programs and Professor, School of Social Work, obtained his PhD from the University of Washington in 1982.  Dr. Pecora brings expertise in child welfare systems reform, evaluating services for high risk families, and promoting resilience in at-risk and children who are placed in foster care. Dr. Pecora has provided training to program leaders and staff in United States, Canada, Italy, Great Britain, and Portugal. He has served as an expert witness for the states of Florida, New Mexico, Washington, and Wisconsin.  His co-authored books and articles focus on child welfare program design, administration, and research. He has been consulted regarding evaluation of child and family services to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and a number of foundations including the Annie E. Casey Foundation, Colorado Trust, Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, McKnight Foundation, and the Stuart Foundation. He received a short-term J. William Fulbright Scholarship for Australia for Fall 2002.

ppecora@casey.org

Frederick Rivara,

Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology, Head of the Division of General Pediatrics, Vice Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and Editor of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, received his MD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. He also holds an MPH from the University of Washington. He is currently Director of the CDC-funded Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center and serves as PI or Co-PI on grants from the NIAAA, NIMH, and RWJ foundation. Dr. Rivara holds an endowed professorship, has been recipient of major awards (e.g., the Distinguished Career Award from the American Public Health Association and the Physician Achievement Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics) and has a long record of service on national advisory boards and as a grant reviewer. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in injury prevention in children.

Dr. Rivara's research is devoted to the prevention and control of injuries to children and adolescents. Intentional and unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for children between 1 and 19 years of age, accounting for more deaths than the next 10 leading causes combined. As research projects, Dr. Rivara is involved in analytical epidemiological studies to understand and identify the groups at highest risk of injury, determine host, agent, and environmental risk factors for injury, and find factors that decrease the risk of injury or of poor outcome once injured.  After identification of risk and protective factors, Dr. Rivara has also conducted intervention studies both in clinical settings and as community intervention trials. This has included investigation of trauma and acute care of the injured patient and in rehabilitation.

For more information:  http://depts.washington.edu/hiprc

fpr@u.washington.edu

 

Susan Spieker,

Professor, Department of Parent and child Nursing, received her PhD in Developmental Psychology at Cornell University in 1982. Her primary interests are in attachment-related prevention efforts with parents of infants and toddlers. She is an affiliate of the Center on Human Development and Disability and Director of the Center on Infant Mental Health and Development. Her primary interests are in attachment-related prevention efforts with parents of infants and toddlers. Dr. Spieker's research involves longitudinal analysis of the effects of early experience, specifically early caregiving experience, and on the socio-emotional development of infants and children. She is currently PI of an NIMH clinical trial, "Promoting Infant Mental Health in Foster Care.”

spieker@u.washington.edu

http://www.son.washington.edu/certif-imh/

Elaine Thompson,

Professor in the Psychosocial and Community Health within the University of Washington's School of Nursing, obtained her Doctorate in Sociology from the University of Washington. Dr. Thompson is an adolescent psychosocial nurse and nurse researcher, with extensive training and experience in survey research, experimental design, and advanced analytic methods. She has also received funding from The National Institute of Nursing Research and The National Institute of Mental Health for suicide prevention and school dropout prevention research. Her research specializations are 1) intervention and evaluation research; 2) advanced multivariate analytic techniques; 3) measurement and instrument development; and 4) testing intervention theory. Her clinical specializations are 1) family, child, and adolescent psychosocial nursing; 2) suicide risk assessment; and 3) stress and self-management. She is currently a senior prevention scientist and principal investigator on the Reconnecting Youth Prevention Research Program. This multi-faceted program focuses on testing school-based models for preventing suicidal behaviors, depression, drug abuse and school dropout among high-risk youth, and the effect of psychosocial risk and protective factors on adolescent development within family, friendship, and school context.

elainet@u.washington.edu

Karina L. Walters,

Associate Professor of Social work, received her PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995.  Dr. Walters is the William B. and Ruth Gerberding Endowed Professor of Social Work and the Director of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute. She brings an emphasis on multicultural health/mental health, specifically on how identity attitudes among oppressed populations impact psychological and physical well-being (primary focus is on urban American Indian populations). Her research includes attention to alcohol use, HIV/AIDS, and cultural mediators of coping.

kw5@u.washington.edu

Carolyn Webster-Stratton,

Professor, School of Nursing, received her PhD in Educational Psychology/Child Psychology in 1980, and completed post-doctoral training in Child Psychology at the University of Washington. She is Director of the University of Washington Parenting Clinic and is a nationally recognized researcher in the areas of parenting, child conduct problems, and promoting young children's social skills and problem-solving. In recent years she has become involved in evaluating her parent, teacher, and child training programs as early school-based prevention programs (preschool through grade three) with the goal of reducing violence and drug abuse in later years. In the past 15 years, she has been P.I. or Co-P.I. for 13 federally funded research grants. She is P.I. on a grant from NINR, developing, evaluating, and improving early intervention programs for families with young children with ODD/CD. Dr. Webster-Straton is also funded by a NIDA prevention grant evaluating their teacher training and child Dinosaur curriculum in the classroom as well as their parent program in the schools. This will be offered to kindergarten and grade one students. She is also P.I. on an ACYF grant that takes a clinic-based treatment program for conduct disorders and evaluates its efficacy as a classroom-based early intervention program for preventing the development of ODD and early-onset  conduct problems.

cws@u.washington.edu