Partnering to improve youth mental health
The IMPACT Center is a transdisciplinary collaboration among three leading research institutions dedicated to improving mental health for youth in low-resourced community settings
A partnership-driven, transdisciplinary approach
The IMPACT Center brings together experts from complementary disciplines to optimize evidence-based practice implementation for youth in low-resourced community settings, such as community mental health centers and schools. This transdisciplinary approach adds substantial value to our research aims, as the issues of implementation science and mental health services research cannot be resolved by a sole discipline, nor can single investigator-led projects be expected to transform mental health care.
The IMPACT Center’s inter-institutional leadership structure leverages complimentary experience and expertise in implementation science, effectiveness research, and measure development and evaluation. This partnership provides an opportunity for broader IMPACT Center influence through each institution’s unique community networks, as well as methods testing and refinement.
Center Co-Director, Project 2 Lead
Shannon Dorsey, PhD
Dr. Shannon Dorsey is a Professor and Associate Chair of Graduate Studies in the Department of Psychology, Adjunct Professor in the Department of Global Health and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. Her research is on evidence-based treatment (EBT) for children and adolescents, with a particular focus on dissemination and implementation of EBT domestically and globally. Her work has often focused on trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), with hybrid research designs that include both effectiveness and implementation science questions.
Her research has focused on training and supervision strategies to deliver TF-CBT and other EBT, with a particular focus on under-resourced settings. Her current research includes an NIMH-funded implementation study examining questions related to scale up of mental health treatments delivered via task-sharing in health and education in Kenya (via community health volunteer and teacher delivery) and implementation practices and policies that predict implementation success.
As IMPACT Center Co-Director, Dr. Dorsey oversees all aspects of the Center with MPI Dr. Weiner, including strategic scientific oversight, exploratory and pilot research project support, communication across investigators, dissemination of Center methods and resources to the practice and scientific communities, development and delivery of training (with Co-I Lyon), and future planning. She will be responsible for communicating with NIMH and coordinating administrative and strategic Center activities.
Center Co-Director, Methods Core Co-Lead
Bryan J. Weiner, PhD
Dr. Bryan J. Weiner is a Professor in the Departments of Global Health and Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington (UW). An organizational psychologist, his research over the past three decades has focused on the implementation of evidence-based interventions in general health care, and in cancer care specifically. He joined the UW faculty in 2016 to become the Director of the Department of Global Health Implementation Science Program. In 2019, Dr. Weiner became MPI of the NCI-funded OPTICC Center, with co-MPIs Drs. Lewis and Hannon.
As IMPACT Center Co-Director, Dr. Weiner provides direction and oversight of all study activities and analyses and leads the administrative oversight of the award with MPI Dr. Dorsey.
As IMPACT Center Methods Core Co-Lead, Dr. Weiner leads methods development, product development, and training efforts. In coordination with Co-Lead Dr. Klasnja, he develops and refines methods for barrier identification and prioritization, develops methods for matching implementation strategies to target barriers, participates in the IMPACT Center Steering Committee, and contributes to strategic leadership and ensuring that future planning activities continue to integrate cutting-edge developments in implementation science.
Methods Core Co-Lead
Predrag “Pedja” Klasnja, PhD
Dr. Pedja Klasnja is an Associate Professor in the School of Information at the University of Michigan and an Affiliate Researcher at KPWHRI, who focuses on the development and evaluation of digital health interventions. Dr. Klasnja studies how technology can help people to better manage their health by making and sustaining health-promoting changes, and more effectively collaborating on health management with their healthcare providers. He is particularly interested in intervention optimization and methods for iterative and efficient development and testing of new interventions.
As Methods Core Co-Lead, Dr. Klasnja is responsible for leading the methods and product development along with Dr. Meza (e.g., toolkits, massive open online courses), and associated training in the Methods Core innovations, notably Challenge 2 (Match Strategies to Prioritized Determinants) and Challenge 3 (Optimize Strategies).
Methods Core Co-Lead
Rosemary Meza, PhD
Dr. Rosemary Meza is a Collaborative Scientist at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and a Clinical Psychologist with extensive experience in studying the implementation of evidence-based interventions for youth mental health in low-resource settings in the US and globally. Dr. Meza has a dual focus on studying innovation implementation and methods to improve implementation research. Her work focuses on improving access to quality care through designing and testing improvements to existing resources such as leadership, supervision, and peer support. Dr. Meza has expertise in quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods, and community-engaged research.
As Methods Core Co-Lead, Dr. Meza works closely with Dr. Klasnja to oversee scientific execution of IMPACT-funded studies including deployment of methods, data collection, analysis, and interpretation. She contributes to methods development, refinement, and dissemination through products such as toolkits and training and leads the advancement of a methodology for theorizing about and testing mechanisms of implementation strategies.
Senior Advisor
Gregory Simon, MD, PhD
Dr. Gregory Simon is an investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, a psychiatrist in Kaiser Permanente’s Behavioral Health Service, and a faculty member of the Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine and the University of Washington. Dr. Simon’s research focuses on improving access to and quality of mental health care, especially for mood disorders and people at risk for self-harm and suicide. His specific areas of research include improving adherence to medication, increasing the availability of effective psychotherapy, personalization of treatment for mood disorders, evaluating peer support by and for people with mood disorders, prediction of suicidal behavior, population-based suicide prevention programs, and racial/ethnic disparities in mental health care. Dr. Simon currently leads the Mental Health Research Network (MHRN) a NIMH-funded cooperative agreement supporting population-based mental health research across 14 large health systems.
As a Senior Advisor, Dr. Simon meets quarterly with Drs. Weiner and Dorsey to discuss IMPACT Center leadership and progress, using MHRN as a model to provide support in optimizing structures, processes, and products.
Senior Advisor
Patricia A. Areán, PhD
Dr. Patricia Areán is a professor in the University of Washington Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and a licensed clinical psychologist. Dr. Areán is a leading behavioral scientist, with expertise in cross-cultural mental health, geriatric psychology, assessment and treatment of depression and anxiety, the use of Human Centered Design for adapting psychosocial interventions and in the use of technology to conduct surveys, user experience research and clinical trials to scale. She is currently co-director of the NIMH-funded ALACRITY Center and directs the CREATIV and the MHATS Digital Laboratories at the UW. Dr. Areán has published on the recognition and treatment of depression and anxiety, methods for recruiting and retaining large and representative numbers of adults into longitudinal research, and acceptability of using digital data for the purpose of screening and treating mental illnesses.
As a Senior Advisor, Dr. Areán provides insight to IMPACT Center Co-Directors regarding future directions of intervention and implementation research.
Linda M. Collins, PhD
Dr. Linda M. Collins is Professor of
Social and Behavioral Sciences in the
School of Global Public Health at
New York University. She is also Professor of
Biostatistics, co-Director of the Transdisciplinary Methods Core of the
Center for Drug Use and HIV Research, and Director of the
Center for Advancement and Dissemination of Intervention Optimization (CADIO).
Dr. Collins’s research program focuses on methods for principled optimization of behavioral, biobehavioral, biomedical, and social-structural interventions. She and her collaborators have integrated ideas from
a variety of fields — including behavioral science, industrial and control engineering, health economics, and decision science — to develop the multiphase optimization strategy (MOST). MOST is an alternative to
the classical treatment package approach to intervention development and evaluation that has been applied in more than 150 National Institutes of Health-funded projects to date and in numerous other projects worldwide.
Kimberly Hoagwood, PhD
Dr. Kimberly Eaton Hoagwood is
Cathy and Stephen Graham Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine. She served as Vice Chair for Research in the Department from 2012 to 2019. She holds a joint
position with the Division of Children, Youth and Families at the New York State Office of Mental Health as a Research Scientist. Before coming to New York, she was Associate Director for Child and Adolescent Mental
Health Research with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), where she oversaw the entire portfolio of research on children and adolescents, spanning basic to applied studies. This gave her a broad perspective
on research gaps and the theoretical and methodological connections that exist among different areas of science.
Dr. Hoagwood is Director of the Center for Implementation-Dissemination of Evidence-Based Practices among States, known as
IDEAS, an ALACRITY Center funded by NIMH (P50MH113662). This work builds on two prior NIMH-funded centers, as well as numerous other federal grants and state contracts, all focused on improving children’s mental
health services in state systems. Her specific research interests focus on parent activation in children’s health services, quality measurement in children’s behavioral health, and improving state policies that
affect child and family services through the use of scientific evidence.
Lisa Saldana, PhD
Dr. Lisa Saldana is a Senior Research Scientist and Associate Director at Chestnut Health Systems Lighthouse Institute and Regional Director of the Lighthouse Institute Oregon Group. Her research is on the development, evaluation, and implementation of evidence-based practices in public-serving systems. Her work has often focused on research and system change in child welfare settings. Lisa has led the development of evidence-based practice for parental opioid and methamphetamine use disorder (Families Actively Improving Relationships, or FAIR) and child welfare work force supervision (R3 Supervision Strategy). Her other areas of leadership include measurement of implementation process and milestones (Stages of Implementation Completion, or SIC) and implementation resource use (Cost of Implementing New Strategies, or COINS). She brings a strong emphasis on mentoring the next generation of implementation scientists.
Luke Wolfenden, PhD
Dr. Luke Wolfenden is Professor of Public Health at the University of Newcastle. He is a behavioural and implementation scientist in a research-only role funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Investigator grant. Prof Wolfenden holds a number of leadership roles, including as the Director of the NHMRC Centre for Research Excellence in Implementation for Community Chronic Disease Prevention, Co-Director of WHO Collaborating Centre for NCD Program Implementation, and Co-ordinating Editor of Cochrane Public Health. He is also a Health Service Manager at a Population Health Unit, in New South Wales (Australia), where he oversees the implementation of population-based health promotion services across the Hunter New England region. His research seeks to reduce the chronic disease burden in the community through undertaking policy relevant evidence syntheses, conducting trials of interventions to reduce modifiable chronic disease risks, and testing strategies to increase the adoption and implementation of evidence-based interventions. He is currently focussed on the development and application of learning health systems as an approach to optimise and transform the implementation of health promotion services.
Briana Woods-Jaeger, PhD
Dr. Briana Woods-Jaeger is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Equity and Engagement in the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences at Emory University. She is also a Licensed Clinical Psychologist specializing in traumatic stress and culturally responsive interventions. Dr. Woods-Jaeger’s research examines social and structural factors that link the experience of child trauma and adversity to mental and physical health inequities. Her work focuses on partnering with communities to identify ways to prevent adverse childhood experiences and support different systems such as education, health care, and community-based organizations in responding to the needs of trauma-exposed youth and families. She is currently a principal investigator on research projects supported by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and United Way focused on violence prevention and mental health promotion for trauma-exposed youth and families of color.
Center Administrator
Michelle Chan, MPA
As Center Administrator, Michelle Chan is responsible for the day-to-day oversight and implementation of project activities in the Administrative Core under the leadership of MPIs Weiner and Dorsey. She will oversee recruitment, selection, and implementation of pilot projects in partnership with the Methods Core. She also coordinates research meetings (i.e. Steering Committees, Advisory Boards), events (i.e. Deep Dive, Symposium) and communication across the Center.
Methods Core Project Manager
Rene Hawkes, BS
As Methods Core Project Manager, Rene Hawkes is responsible for the day-to-day oversight and implementation of project activities in the Methods Core. She coordinates mentoring consultations and workshops for Trainees (i.e., pilot PIs, IRI Fellows, SIRC), and collaborates with the Administrative Core on the IMPACT Center’s data collection, sharing and reporting to NIMH, and a Center-wide evaluation.
Project Manager, IMPACT Project 1
Carolyn Bain, MPH
As the Project Manager for IMPACT Project 1, Carolyn Bain oversees and monitors the budget, develops and monitors timelines, and prepares submissions to the IRB. In addition, she takes an active role in refining, testing, and documenting study protocols and procedures and oversees data collection activities. She writes and submits scheduled progress reports and reports study results for Project 1.
Project 3 Lead
Aaron R. Lyon, PhD
Dr. Aaron Lyon is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington (UW). He is also Co-Director of the School Mental Health Assessment, Research, and Training (SMART) Center, an implementation research and technical assistance center dually housed in the UW’s School of Medicine and College of Education; Co-Director of the NIMH-funded UW ALACRITY Center, which integrates human-centered design and implementation science; and Director of the Research Institute for Implementation Science in Education (RIISE), a research training program for educational scholars. Dr. Lyon conducts quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research focused on increasing the accessibility and effectiveness of psychosocial interventions for children, adolescents, and families, delivered within contexts that routinely provide care to chronically underserved populations.
In the IMPACT Center, Dr. Lyon serves as a member of Steering Committee to ensure close collaboration with the UW ALACRITY Center. He leads Project 3, which will develop a streamlined and digital version of the Beliefs and Attitudes for Successful Implementation in Schools (BASIS) implementation strategy.
Methods Expert Consultant; IRI training Program Liaison
Byron Powell, PhD, LCSW
Dr. Byron Powell is an Associate Professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. He is Co-Director of the Brown School’s Center for Mental Health Services Research and Associate Director of the Institute for Public Health’s Center for Dissemination & Implementation, where he leads the Methods & Metascience Initiative.
Dr. Powell is President of the Society for Implementation Research Collaboration (SIRC), is Associate Director Designee for the Implementation Research Institute, and serves on the editorial boards for Implementation Science and Implementation Research and Practice. As SIRC President, Dr. Powell provides expertise related to strategic planning and outreach for the IMPACT Center, as well as insights into IMPACT’s training and involvement with the Implementation Research Institute (IRI) Fellows as IRI core faculty.
Methods Core Expert Faculty
Lorella Palazzo, PhD
Dr. Lorella Palazzo is a Collaborative Scientist at KPWRI who specializes in optimizing care delivery and improving access to health services. She has extensive experience in analyzing clinical data and evaluating health care improvement efforts. Inspired by her training as a sociologist, Dr. Palazzo is also interested in how social scientists can best collaborate with other health researchers to improve care.
As Methods expert faculty, Dr. Palazzo applies rapid qualitative methods to generate a comprehensive list of determinants operating in each of the clinics. She also helps prioritize determinants from evidence review, rapid ethnography, and design probe activities as a member of the research team.
Methods Core Lead Analyst
Michael Pullmann, PhD
Dr. Michael Pullmann is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Washington, and provides methodological leadership for both the UW SMART Center and the UW ALACRITY Center in addition to his role with the OPTICC Center. Dr. Pullmann’s research focuses on community-based and participatory approaches in cross-system collaborative efforts. He has a particular interest in illuminating policy decisions through longitudinal approaches to data analyses of large-scale administrative databases, as well as implementation and dissemination efforts. His research has examined the unintended consequences and other ripple effects of implementation strategies in children’s mental health.
As a Methods Core Lead Analyst, Dr. Pullmann leads statistical analyses of IMPACT Center projects and offers centralized analytic capabilities to IMPACT-funded studies. He brings expertise in multilevel growth modeling, psychometric analysis, mediation, and moderation analyses.
Methods Core Expert Faculty
Marlaine Figueroa Gray, PhD
Dr. Marlaine Figueroa Gray is an Assistant Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and a medical anthropologist who has extensive experience in field observation, qualitative interviewing, and qualitative data analysis. She has led analyses assessing the perspectives of adolescent and young adult cancer patients, their caregivers, and clinicians and medical decision making and care outcomes for women during pregnancy and for bariatric surgery patients.
As Methods Expert on Project 2, Dr. Figueroa Gray collaborates with Drs. Dorsey and Pullmann on qualitative interviews and analyses in Aim 1.
Methods Core Expert Faculty
Nora Henrikson, PhD, MPH
Dr. Nora Henrikson is a behavioral scientist and Associate Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and an Affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Washington School of Public Health Department of Health Services. Dr. Henrikson is the Washington lead for the Kaiser Permanente Research Affiliates AHRQ-funded Evidence-based Practice Center, where she leads systematic reviews that inform the US Preventive Services Task Force guidelines.
As Methods Core Expert, Dr. Henrikson is responsible for leading both the methods development and product development for Stage I method rapid evidence reviews.
Methods Core Expert Faculty
Paula Blasi, MPH
Paula Blasi is a Collaborative Scientist at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWRHI) who works with the Kaiser Permanente Evidence-based Practice Center (EPC) on systematic evidence reviews of clinical preventive services for the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. She also leads rapid literature reviews for KPWHRI’s Center for Accelerating Care Transformation (ACT Center).
As Project 1 Methods Expert and in collaboration with the Methods Core, Ms. Blasi provides expertise in evidence synthesis for IMPACT Stage I methods.
Project 1 Co-Lead, Administrative Core Stakeholder Lead
Ruben G. Martinez, PhD
Dr. Ruben Martinez is an Assistant Professor in the Brown Research on Implementation and Dissemination to Guide Evidence Use (BRIDGE) Program at Brown University. Dr. Martinez is trained as a child and adolescent clinical psychologist. He has clinical expertise in measurement-based care, assessment and treatment of childhood anxiety disorders, and culturally compassionate psychotherapy. His research focuses broadly on improving the implementation and quality of mental health services for underserved youth.
Dr. Martinez has several roles in the IMPACT Center. He works with Drs. Dorsey and Weiner to recruit community practice stakeholder members, who will bring youth/consumer perspective to our Stakeholder Advisory Committee. He also leads Project 1, which develops and refines new, pragmatic methods for implementing mental health innovations in low-resource, community-based settings. He works closely with the Methods Core faculty and the Project 1 team to carry out the deployment of these methods at participating clinics and beyond.
Research Administrative Coordinator, Administrative Core
Virginia Lopez
Virginia Lopez provides support to the Administrative Core for all project activities, including ordering and managing supplies, drafting meeting minutes, typing reports and letters, scheduling meetings, making travel arrangements, and assisting with manuscript preparation. Ms. Lopez works closely with Center Co-Director Dr. Dorsey and Center Administrator Ms. Chan in coordinating this project, helping ensure that investigators and project staff are fully informed of the parallel activities between sites and projects.
Research Specialist, Administrative Core
Caitlin Dorsey, BAH
Caitlin Dorsey is a Research Specialist III at Kaiser Permanente Washington Research Institute (KPWHRI). Her work focuses mainly on implementation science, stemming from substance use disorder clinical trials to studying best practices for methods and measurement. She has expertise in conducting rigorous systematic reviews across a multitude of research areas at KPWHRI. Her expertise also extends to qualitative analyses, such as individual and focus group interviews, as well as formative evaluation work.
As a Research Specialist, Caitlin supports the IMPACT Center’s Administrative Core, including curating content for the IMPACT website, tracking certain metrics (i.e., collaborations), and helping prepare presentations.
Programmer, Administrative Core
John Weeks
John Weeks has been working as a data scientist and software engineer for over 20 years, with more than 10 years of experience working with health care data. He has specialized knowledge of research health care common data models, such as the HCSRN VDW and the OHDSI OMOP.
As the IMPACT Center’s programmer, Mr. Weeks is responsible for co-designing the relational database in coordination with Drs. Klasnja, Meza, and other project team members. The relational database connects all IMPACT Center-accumulated evidence and resources in an easily searchable manner and feeds content into the open-access website.
Research Specialist, Methods Core
Kayne D. Mettert, BA (Hons)
As Research Specialist for the Methods Core, Kayne Mettert provides expertise, mentoring and assistance for the IMPACT Center and its signature and pilot study projects. Responsibilities include conducting the scoping, review, screening, abstraction, and analysis for the rapid evidence review, as well as refining the rapid review protocol.
Research Specialist III, Methods Core
Camilo Estrada
As a Research Specialist, Camilo Estrada supports to the Methods Core on various tasks, including creating REDcap questionnaires, coding office hour transcripts for overarching themes, and helping curate IMPACT-related content for the relational database. He also provides support on Dr. Meza’s pilot project, including conducting a rapid scoping review, conducting qualitative interviews, data synthesis, and manuscript writing.
Research Specialist, Project 1
Abigail Matson, BA
As the Research Specialist for Project 1, Abigail Matson provides the following support: prepping clinics for Rapid Ethnographic Assessment (REA), collecting data, developing and refining the Design Probe Toolkit, assisting with Barrier Prioritization workshop preparation, preparing materials for site visits, and agenda setting.
Postdoctoral Fellow, Project 2
Enoch Sackey, PhD
Dr. Enoch Sackey’s research interests focus on how to optimally use research to improve population outcomes and reduce service inefficiencies that pose endemic challenge to health and social care systems. He is particularly interested in the dissemination and implementation of culturally appropriate interventions aimed at serving traditionally underrepresented populations (especially children and adolescents in low-resource communities) and addressing the following topics: 1) structural inequities and reducing mental health disparities among ethno-racial minorities; 2) disseminating and implementing scalable, sustainable intervention strategies for improving mental health in underserved populations; 3) cultural adaptations of interventions; and 4) social determinants of health and wellbeing.
Dr. Sackey is originally from Cape Coast, Ghana, where he received his BSc in Psychology at the University of Cape Coast. He then went to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) for his MPhil in Human Development. From there, he went to the University of Mississippi for his PhD in Clinical Psychology and received his Pre-doctoral Clinical Psychology Internship training at the Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston Consortium), focusing on trauma and behavioral medicine.
Dr. Sackey supports IMPACT Signature Project 2, focused on optimizing supervisor coaching for peer leadership to support successful implementation of CBT and positive outcomes for youth.
Graduate Student Research Assistant, Project 2
Celine Lu
Celine Lu is a graduate student in child clinical psychology at the University of Washington (UW). Her research focuses on understanding strategies to support the community mental health workforce. She is also interested in leveraging research to inform mental health policies. Celine graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2019 with a bachelor’s in Psychology and a specialization in computing. Before joining the RISE Mental Health Lab at UW, she was a research coordinator for the Families, Emotions, Neuroscience and Development Lab at the University of Pittsburgh, under Dr. Jennifer Silk.
Celine is contributing to a survey investigating strategies to support a positive implementation climate by synthesizing ideation data into vignettes to test with clinicians. She supports Project 2 with recruitment, data collection, participant management, and data cleaning.
Research Manager, Project 3
Roger Goosey
As the Research Manager for Project 3, Roger Goosey assists Dr. Lyon in convening project meetings and is responsible for overseeing research staff and day-to-day project activities, participating in data collection activities as needed, and maintaining ongoing contact/follow-up with community partners and other collaborators.
Web Designer, Administrative Core
Elspeth Nolen, MSc
Elspeth Nolen is an experienced administrator trained in critical medical anthropology who uses her experience and training to improve the impact and reach of the programs she works with. In addition to designing and managing the IMPACT Center website, Ms. Nolen is the Program Manager and Web Designer for the University of Washington Implementation Science Program led by IMPACT MPI Bryan Weiner, and is also the Web Designer for the NCI-funded OPTICC Center.