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Emma Adam, PhD

Professor, Human Development and Social Policy, School of Education and Social Policy

Emma Adam is a developmental psychologist with an interest in applying theory and research on human development to informing policies and programs aimed at improving the wellbeing of children, adolescents, and young adults. She is an expert in the developmental psychobiology of stress and sleep. Adam studies how everyday experiences in the lives of children, adolescents and young adults impact their stress biology, with implications for emotional health, physical health and academic outcomes.

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Norrina Allen, PhD

Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Health Services & Outcomes Research; Professor, Preventive Medicine (Epidemiology), Medical Social Sciences (Determinants of Health), & Pediatrics

Dr. Allen specializes in cardiovascular epidemiology with a focus on health services research. Her research interests include the effect of neighborhood and environment on cardiovascular disease, disparities in quality of care and outcomes as well as the use of large databases to examine these questions.

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Audrey Brewer, MD, MPH

Assistant Professor, Pediatrics (Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care)

Dr. Brewer’s overarching research interests revolve around the relationship between pediatric chronic medical conditions and adversities experienced during early childhood. In addition, her interests include understanding factors that contribute to child and family resilience despite social and environmental adversities that impact health outcomes over the life course. She aims to develop culturally appropriate innovative evidence- and community-based interventions that improve health equity and can lessen the burden adversity has on the health of diverse patient populations. 

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Amanda Burnside, PhD

Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child Psychology), Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science)

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Danielle Hatchimonji, PhD

Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child Psychology)

Danielle Hatchimonji is a licensed clinical psychologist with the Center for Childhood Resilience at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Dr. Hatchimonji has over 10 years of clinical and research experience in hospital, school, and community settings. Her work focuses on promoting resilience and increasing access to evidence-based mental health programming for children and communities impacted by poverty, toxic stress and trauma, and racism. Dr. Hatchimonji’s research focuses on the development, implementation, and dissemination of evidence-based mental health interventions for youth in school and community settings. 

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Katie Insel, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology

Neuroscientist Dr. Katie Insel studies child and adolescent brain development to better understand how youth learn, make decisions, and pursue their goals. Her research investigates how kids and teens build cognitive skills to handle the challenges of daily life. She also examines the links between brain development and wellbeing to explain why adolescence coincides with a sudden rise in mental health disorders. Her lab uses multimodal approaches, including novel behavioral tasks, functional neuroimaging (fMRI), and computational modeling. Insel is committed to translating science to inform policy, and she works with policy-makers, lawyers, educators, and clinicians to help translate basic science to inform real world applications. 

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Allison Letkiewicz, PhD

Adjunct Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Letkiewicz's research primarily focuses on identifying relationships between cognitive functioning (executive function, learning, and decision-making) and internalizing psychopathology (with a particular emphasis on depression and anxiety) using multiple methods (fMRI, computational modeling, EEG/ERPs, neuropsychological assessment). Additionally, her research examines the role of childhood trauma on cognitive functioning and emotion processing in adolescence and adulthood.

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Dennis Li, PhD

Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (General Psychiatry) & Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science)

Dr. Dennis H. Li is an assistant professor in the Departments of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science) and the Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science. He is also founding director of the ACCELERATE research program at the Impact Institute. With a goal of helping to end the HIV epidemic in the US, Dr. Li's research centers on the application of implementation science methods to strengthen community-based and public health systems and improve implementation of HIV prevention and treatment interventions to communities most impacted by the disease.

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Daniel Mrozcek, PhD

Chief, Determinants of Health, Department of Medical Social Sciences; Professor, Medical Social Sciences (Determinants of Health) & Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Mroczek’s research focuses on 1.) lifespan personality development, including change, stability, and trajectory models of key traits, 2) the influence of personality – and personality change -- on physical health, mortality, and other important life outcomes (e.g. income/net worth, well-being dimensions).  He also has several methodological interests, in particular multilevel modeling, survival analysis, longitudinal design, secondary and archival data analysis, and integrated data analysis (IDA). His research is supported by the National Institute on Aging.

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Jaclyn Papadakis, PhD

Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child Psychology)

Dr. Papadakis is a pediatric psychologist in the Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Lurie Children’s and an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She specializes in treating mood, anxiety, behavioral, and adjustment disorders using evidence-based individual, family, and group psychotherapeutic approaches for youth with chronic health conditions. She works primarily with youth with spina bifida as part of the Spina Bifida Center, and youth with differences of sex development (DSD) as part of the Sex Development Program. She is also an attending psychologist on the Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Consultation Service.

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Brent Rappaport, PhD

Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Psychology)

Marisha Speights

Assistant Professor, School of Communication

Marisha Speights is an assistant professor at Northwestern University and the director of the Pediatric Speech Technologies and Acoustics Research Lab (PedzSTAR lab). Her research focuses on testing automated methods for tracking acoustic vocal biomarkers for the early detection of speech disorders in young children. She works in collaboration with computer and data scientists who specialize in machine learning to develop innovative computer-based approaches for classifying children with articulatory difficulties. More generally, her lab conducts research on aspects of articulatory and acoustic phonetics, child speech production, and listeners’ speech perception to develop software tools for quantitative screening of developmental speech disorders and assessment of decreased speech intelligibility.

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Callie Walsh-Bailey, MPH, PhD

Assistant Professor, Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science)

Dr. Walsh-Bailey's research focuses on the intersection of implementation science, health equity, and prevention and control of cancer and other chronic diseases. The goal of her research is to improve the uptake, delivery, and sustainment of evidence-based interventions for marginalized populations to equitably improve health. Dr. Walsh-Bailey works collaboratively across research disciplines, clinical specialties, and health system and community groups in transdisciplinary efforts to solve complex implementation challenges. Her research incorporates qualitative and mixed methods approaches into pragmatic study designs. She has extensive experience in specification and tracking of implementation strategies and intervention adaptation, and hybrid implementation-effectiveness studies.

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Jill Weissberg-Benchell

Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Jill Weissberg-Benchell, PhD, CDCES, is a pediatric psychologist and a certified diabetes care and education specialist with more than 35 years of research experience and clinical work with children and adolescents with diabetes. Her academic appointment is Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She has published research articles and offered workshops and lectures addressing issues such as improving self-management behaviors, adapting and coping by families, building adolescent resilience, using technology (e.g., continuous glucose monitoring devices, pumps, artificial pancreas), and transitioning from pediatric to adult care.

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Courtney Zulauf-McCurdy, PhD

Assistant Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child Psychology)

Courtney Zulauf-McCurdy, PhD is a clinical psychologist focused on empowering caregivers so they can support the social and emotional development of our most vulnerable young children. Dr. Zulauf-McCurdy partners with early childhood centers, school systems, and families to improve early childhood care for 3-6 year olds. Her research is focused on: 1) developing ways to strengthen family-teacher relationships, and 2) improving the implementation of behavioral interventions in preschool settings. 

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