Our Team

Investigative Team

David J. Kolko, PhD

Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, Pediatrics, and Clinical and Translational Science, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine

Dr. Kolko is a licensed and Board certified Clinical Psychologist, and Director of the Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic (WPIC) Special Services Unit, a treatment research program for delinquent youth. He has directed inpatient, outpatient, and partial hospitalization programs serving children with behavior disorders/problems at WPIC, and has developed, implemented, and evaluated procedures for the assessment and treatment of firesetting and other antisocial behaviors in psychiatrically disturbed children, most of whom have received a diagnosis of Conduct Disorder and/or Attention Deficit Disorder. He has conducted treatment and research in the area of childhood behavior problems for more than 30 years, and has served as a consultant to the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. Fire Administration, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, regarding treatments for offending and victimized children.

Renee Turchi, MD, MPH

Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Drexel University College of Medicine

Since 2005, Dr. Turchi has been Director and PI of the PA Medical Home Program in Pennsylvania, leading the largest statewide pediatric network of practices in Quality Improvement efforts related to medical homes housed at the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She has history at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and with community related projects, as demonstrated by federal (HRSA), state (Title V), and local (Foundation) funding to these activities. She has published and presented on this work in regional and national arenas.

In addition, Dr. Turchi is Division Chief of General Pediatrics at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children and the Medical Director of the Center for Children and Youth with Special Health Care Needs at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children. Her team has collaborated with Dr. Kolko and the Research Team in working on behavioral health in the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics Medical home Program.

Amy Kilbourne, PhD, MPH

Professor of Psychiatry, University of Michigan Medical School

For the past 20 years Dr. Kilbourne's research has focused on development and implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) to improve outcomes for persons in community-based practices (e.g., R34 MH74509), large integrated health systems (e.g., VA SDR 11-232), and national health plans (R18 HS021425), especially for priority and underserved populations. She has also designed and rigorously tested implementation strategies to promote the uptake of EBPs in community-based settings (R01 MH79994, R01 MH099898, R01 MH114203), including the Enhanced Replicating Effective Programs (E-REP), one of the first operationalized implementation strategies that links theory-based methods from the public health (REP) and organizational psychology (Facilitation) fields to improve uptake of effective interventions in routine practice (e.g., VA SDR 11-232, R01 MH099898). Dr. Kilbourne conducted the first national sequential multiple assignment randomized trial (SMART) design to build an adaptive implementation strategy for community practices by determining the added value of more versus less intensive implementation strategies in clinical settings (ADEPT; R01 MH099898), and more recently, expanded this work to study adaptive implementation strategies to promote uptake of cognitive-behavioral therapy in schools and other settings for children and adolescents, including inner-city and rural settings throughout Michigan (R01 MH114203).

Dr. Kilbourne has also developed and tested collaborative care interventions for adults with mental disorders to improve physical and mental health outcomes (e.g., Life Goals, R23MH74509, R01 MH79994). She was a co-investigator on the DOCC Type 2 hybrid effectiveness-implementation study led Dr. Kolko while at the University of Pittsburgh, ascertaining data on the implementation process which informs this novel Hybrid Type 3 design to test different implementation strategies based on REP and Facilitation to improve uptake of collaborative care in pediatrics practices.

Kimberly Hoagwood, PhD

Vice Chair for Research and Professor of Psychiatry, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University Langone Health

Dr. Hoagwood is a seasoned child mental health services researcher dedicated to applying over four decades of experience implementing evidence-based child mental health practices at local, state, federal, and international levels. She currently co-leads an NIMH-funded ALACRITY research center (IDEAS), where she co-directs a
multidisciplinary research team spanning eight universities and with significant state technical assistance experience. Dr. Hoagwood is dedicated to developing tools to better integrate research evidence into the state policymaking process, and developing and testing innovative strategies for states to more effectively and efficiently care for their high-need, high-cost youth population with serious mental disorders. She is also the PI of a recently-awarded supplement to this Center from National Institute on Drug Abuse to expand our work into youth substance use policies at the state level. As a Research Scientist with the Division of Children and Families at NYS’ Office of Mental Health (OMH), and as the co-director of two large New York State training and technical assistance centers, including The Community Technical Assistance Center (CTAC) and the Evidence-Based Treatment Dissemination Center (EBTDC), funded by OMH, Dr. Hoagwood understands the complexities of rolling out evidence-based practices in state mental health agencies. Working in these 'natural laboratories' over the last decade, with NIMH-funded P30 Advanced Center and P20 Developing Center support, she and her research team developed and refined various approaches for improving EBP rollouts, including parent engagement and activation strategies, which have led to improvements in the access to and the delivery of care to NYS’ children and families. Some of these accomplishments include the expansion of the number of family peer advocates in the state, the development of quality indicators that have guided refinements in NYS’ family peer advocates certification process, and NYS’ Medicaid coverage of peer support services; much of this work was initiated when she was a Professor of Clinical Psychology in Psychiatry, Department of Child Psychiatry, at Columbia University and The New York State Psychiatric Institute, and then continued at NYU. Prior to her tenure at Columbia, she was the Associate Director for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Research at the NIMH, where she oversaw the portfolio of research on child and adolescent mental health, from basic to applied studies, which provided a broad perspective on research gaps and ways to connect different areas of science through interdisciplinary theory and methods. She also served as Scientific Editor for the Office of the Surgeon General's National Action Agenda on Children's Mental Health with Dr. David Satcher.

In summary, her background as both the Chief of the NIMH Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Research Program, guiding federal investments in children’s mental health services research, as well as her experience over the last two decades as both a PI or Co-Investigator on multiple federal research and Center grants (R01MH085969; R01MH086237; R01MH106771; R34MH071745; R18HS018036; R24MH068708; H79SM061900; U19MH110001; P20MH078178; P30MH090322; P50MH113662) and privately-funded research projects (e.g. MacArthur Foundation ChildSTEPS)—all of which were undertaken in the 'natural laboratories' of state mental health clinics—provide ample evidence of her significant investment in, and commitment to, improving the mental health of children and families across the nation.

Satish Iyengar, PhD

Professor and Chair, University of Pittsburgh Department of Statistics

Dr. Iyengar has collaborated with colleagues at UPMC WPH since 1984. Examples of his work include a meta-analysis of studies of the risk of suicide among adolescents on SSRIs, studies of neuroendocrine profiles in affective disorders, the longitudinal course of bipolar youth, studies of ion channels, biophysical models of neural activity, and classification and clustering of interneurons. In addition to this collaborative work, Dr. Iyengar's methodological research involves the calculation of certain probabilities in multivariate analysis, stochastic modeling, meta-analysis, and mathematical problems arising in two-photon scanning microscopy.

Dr. Iyengar began working with Dr. Kolko in 1990 on an early NIMH-funded treatment trial for adolescents. During the past four years, he has worked with Dr. Kolko on a statewide trial to compare training models for implementing evidence-based treatments for disruptive behavior disorders. He has also worked closely with Dr. Kolko on the planning of this proposal (e.g., practice randomization methods, what statistical models to run). Dr. Iyengar's primary role on this study is to advise on the statistical aspects of this study: design, data collection, and analysis, providing advice to help with troubleshooting in this domain.

Shawna Smith, PhD

Research Assistant Professor, University of Michigan

As a behavioral health implementation scientist who works predominantly on implementation trials aimed at optimizing implementation support, Dr. Smith's background is well suited to provide support for this trial. She is an implementation scientist and organizational sociologist with expensive experience in designing, running and analyzing large-scale, cluster-randomized implementation and organization trials. She is currently Co-Investigator on two R01s, including ASIC (PI: Kilbourne; R01 MH114203) where she has led the deployment and fidelity assessment of two implementation strategies—provider coaching and external facilitation, as well as multi-level assessment of implementation and effectiveness outcomes. Dr. Smith has particular expertise in designing, running, and analyzing optimization trials, especially those that use factorial or factorial-variant designs. She is also currently a Co-Investigator on grants from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Blue Cross/Blue Shield focused on implementing mental health evidence-based practices in community settings. She is a reviewer for the PCORI Dissemination and Implementation Panel. She is also the implementation scientist on the leadership team for the Michigan Program on Value Enhancement (MPrOVE), wherein she works with clinician-scientists inside the University of Michigan Health System to implement high-value care, and de-implement low-value care. For the past ten years, she has served as an instructor with the U-M ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods, and the Global School on Empirical Research Methods.

Consultants

Ian Bennett, MD, PhD

Professor of Family Medicine, Psychiatry, and Behavioral Science, University of Washington

Dr. Bennett is a family physician and Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of Washington. He has an advanced independent research program focused on mental health services and implementation science targeting the integration of behavioral health in primary care – particularly for maternal-child health. He is the PI of a methodologically similar NIH/NIMH R01 hybrid study of strategies to implement collaborative care for perinatal depression in primary care sites serving low income women across the US (R01MH108548). His many years of work using mixed methods and participatory action research strategies for a range of investigations include aspects of pragmatic implementation concerns. He is a Co-Investigator of the UW ALACRITY Center funded by NIMH to develop user centered adaptations of EBPIs for non-specialty mental health settings, as well as a co-investigator leading the implementation effort for a trial of an innovative strategy to treat mothers of children with ADHD with the same disorder (R01MH118313; PI Chronis). Dr. Bennett's clinical and research careers are closely aligned with ongoing general primary care and related treatment of common mental disorders. He is a primary care physician scientist with extensive training in scientific method and health services research with a particular focus on implementation science targeting evidence based practices for care of common mental disorders in non mental health specialty settings such as primary care clinics. Dr. Bennett has been awarded and been co-investigator on a range of studies to develop effective implementation strategies for incorporating evidence based care models for common mental disorders for vulnerable populations. His research includes the implementation of evidence based care in use of the team based collaborative care model of care in which primary care infrastructure is enhanced to provide care for common mental disorders. He has led and overseen many grants funded by federal agencies, and foundations. Dr. Bennett is an expert in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches to primary research studies and the analysis of longitudinal data sets.

Kelly Kelleher, MD, MPH

Distinguished Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health, Ohio State University

Dr. Kelleher is ADS Professor of Pediatrics, Psychiatry and Public Health at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and The Ohio State University. Dr. Kelleher focuses on the effectiveness of policy and practice in behavioral health service delivery to high risk youths and their families in primary care, juvenile justice, special education, and foster care settings. As a result, many of his studies focus on children with residential instability and homelessness. In addition, Dr. Kelleher has an extensive background in clinical research, developing and participating in new studies that directly examine pediatric health outcomes in children. Dr. Kelleher has been continuously funded as Principal Investigator by NIH for 25 years including several multi-site projects, the largest national study of child mental health services ever conducted and the largest Innovation Award focused on pediatrics from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation awarded. With his extensive research and academic background, Dr. Kelleher will contribute his skillset and experience in primary care intervention to advise the team on several key issues being examined upon in this study. This includes full consultation on the project providing guidance, advice, and study design and management insight to the project team.

Byron J. Powell, PhD

Assistant Professor, Brown School, Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Powell is a licensed clinical social worker whose work focuses on improving the implementation of effective health, behavioral health, and social services. Specifically, his research focuses on identifying contextual barriers and facilitators to implementing evidence-based practices in routine care, identifying and assessing the effectiveness of implementation strategies, developing methods for tailoring implementation strategies to address determinants of effective implementation, and advancing research methodology in implementation science. He has a K01 from NIMH to develop and pilot an innovative intervention to help organizations more effectively tailor implementation strategies to address contextual needs (K01MH113806). Increasingly, Dr. Powell's collaborative work focuses on rigorously testing implementation strategies and interventions, as he is currently involved as a Co-I or consultant on 5 NIH R01s (NIMH, NIDA, NHLBI, and AHRQ), an R34, an R21 (NIDA), and an R18 (NIDDK). He is also a Co-I (and workgroup Co-Lead with Brian Mittman) of an R13 from AHRQ that focuses on generating a research agenda to advance our understanding of how implementation strategies exert their effects by identifying and testing mechanisms. Dr. Powell serves on the editorial board of the journals Implementation Science and the newly formed Implementation Research and Practice. Dr. Powell provides guidance related to appropriate conceptual frameworks, the assessment of barriers and facilitators, the design and testing of implementation strategies, and the application of qualitative and mixed methods.

Maria Silva

Chief Operating Officer, Allegheny Family Network

Ms. Silva's professional training and life experience in various Parent/Peer Support Programs brings parent perspective to the project and enables her to assist in understanding recruitment and retention strategies and barriers many family members encounter when participating in services. As the COO of a family-run organization serving families with multiple child serving system involvement, Ms. Silva has a wide range of skills and knowledge in understanding the diversity of families, their needs, and the challenges they face. She has helped families navigate the child serving systems and aided in their personal advocacy journeys. She has been called upon and offered technical assistance to a variety of publications for providers offering family perspective so they could maintain a family friendly tone. She offers her services to this project in effort to advocate and be the voice of the families in effort to improve outcomes.

Research Team

Eunice Torres, MS

Program Coordinator
412-246-5286
torreseb@upmc.edu

Ms. Torres is the Program Coordinator for Dr. Kolko's programs with advanced clinical training and experience in diagnostic assessment and in the treatment of child and adolescent sex offenders and other behavior problems as well as affective symptoms including ADHD, ODD, CD, Depression and Anxiety. Eunice is from Puerto Rico and is fully bilingual (Spanish/English). She provides a vital service by translating Spanish treatment audio submitted by trainees during their consultation period.

Amy Laughlin, MS, NCC, LPC

Implementation Interventionist

Mrs. Laughlin has successfully worked in Dr. Kolko’s primary care outcome study (SKIP2) navigating the bridge of physical and behavioral health over the past 8 years. She has extensive care management training and skills in the context of primary care practices. Mrs. Laughlin's duties include helping to coordinate and complete practice readiness assessments, and assisting in the recruitment of family participants. Most significantly, she trains participants on the use of the DOCC intervention and serves as a DOCC Facilitator by conducting consultation for trainees.

Kevin Rumbarger, BA

Research Project Coordinator

Mr. Rumbarger is the Research Project Coordinator for Dr. Kolko's various programs. He provides administrative support to the trainers and participants in the program, coordinating with the University of Pittsburgh to ensure institutional requirements are met. He also assists with data collection, drafting publications, and updating the SKIP website.

Jeff Rounds, BS

Research Systems Specialist

Mr. Rounds is the Research Systems Specialist for Dr. Kolko's programs. He maintains a variety of program websites and provides the data infrastructure necessary to track SKIP participants' progress through the study, ensuring that research data is collected in a timely, safe manner.

Jonathan Hart, MS

Data Manager

Mr. Hart assists the Systems Analyst, Mr. Rounds, to develop the system architecture, user interface, data security measures, and database used in the project under the direction of our faculty statistician. Mr. Hart also maintains all datasets by monitoring the entry of data.

Eileen Thompson, RN, BSN

PA Medical Home Program Director, PA AAP

Bio information to be added

Celeste Liebrecht, LMSW

Implementation Specialist, University of Michigan

Celeste Liebrecht is a Program Manager within the University of Michigan’s Department of Psychiatry and the Ann Arbor VA’s Center for Clinical Management Research. She has assisted Amy Kilbourne, PhD, MPH in the research, implementation and facilitation of evidence-based practices into community settings since 2009. She holds a master’s degree in social work and a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Michigan.

Celeste currently manages multiple research projects, including the Integrated Self-Management Apps study. She has an interest in mHealth technologies and leads the development of the Life Goals Collaborative Care smartphone app, which is currently being developed for Android and iOS operating systems.

To Be Hired

Research Associate