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Translational Science

The faculty listed on this page are part of NU-MHE T32’s Faculty Mentors in Translational Research Methods (Intervention, Prevention, and Implementation).

Faculty Mentors

Sara Becker, PhD

Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Dissemination and Implementation Science; Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (General Psychiatry) & Department of Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science)

Dr Becker conducts programmatic research incorporating both patient-focused dissemination (e.g., direct to consumer marketing, technology-assisted intervention) and provider/organization-focused implementation (e.g., implementation strategy design, workforce development) approaches for improving mental health and mental health services utilization in youth and adults.

Faculty Profile

Rinad Beidas, PhD

Chair, Department of Medical Social Sciences; Professor, Department of Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science) & Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Beidas is an internationally renowned implementation scientist whose research focuses on advancing the study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of evidence-based practices into routine clinical care, with emphasis on mental health, particularly pediatric anxiety implementation. Her novel work leverages insights from behavioral economics and implementation science to make it easier for clinicians, leaders, and organizations to use best practices to improve the quality and equity of care and enhance health outcomes.

Faculty Profile

Scott Compton, PhD

Vice Chair of Psychology and Chief Psychologist, Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health; Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child Psychology)

Dr. Compton is a clinical psychologist, with expertise in clinical trial design and advanced statistical methodology. He has played key scientific and leadership roles in many landmark multi-site clinical trials in pediatric and young adult mental health, including the Child/Adolescent Anxiety Multimodal Study (CAMS), Pediatric OCD Treatment Studies (POTS-1, POTS-2, POTS-Jr), Treatment of Adolescent Suicide Attempters (TASA), and the Comprehensive Adaptive Multisite Prevention of University student Suicide (CAMPUS Trial).

Faculty Profile

Nia Heard-Garris, MD, MBA, MSc

Assistant Professor, Pediatrics (Advanced General Pediatrics and Primary Care) & Medical Social Sciences (Intervention Science)

Dr. Heard-Garris is a pediatric physician-investigator, focusing on the intersection of adversity, adolescent cardiometabolic health, and resilience as well as the impact of these same processes on youth mental health (e.g., depression). Dr. Heard-Garris is trained in health services research with mixed methods and community-based participatory research training.

Faculty Profile

Andrea Graham, PhD

Chief of Implementation Science, Department of Medical Social Sciences (MSS); Associate Professor, Department of Medical Social Sciences (Implementation Science) (Intervention Science) & Preventive Medicine (Behavioral Medicine)

Dr. Graham’s research focuses on designing, optimizing, and implementing digital interventions to increase access to high quality mental health care services for individuals with mental and behavioral health issues using scalable interventions. She is faculty lead of the Dissemination & Implementation Methods Core for the CBITs ALACRITY Center, a Center focused on applying design methods to address the research-to practice problem for digital mental health interventions into healthcare settings and is the leader in applying user centered design methods to design digital interventions that meet stakeholders’ needs and implementation plans that support the integration of digital tools into practice.

Faculty Profile

Jennifer Hoffmann, MD, MS

Assistant Professor, Pediatrics (Emergency Medicine) & Medical Social Sciences (Intervention Science)

Dr. Hoffman is a physician-scientist whose research program focuses on the adaptation, testing, and implementation of brief ER-based interventions to prevent youth suicide. She is funded by a K23 Career Development Award from the NIMH and several foundation grants to study a suicide prevention intervention. Dr. Hoffman has a strong track record of scholarly quality improvement work related to suicide risk screening and lethal means safety counseling in the ED.

Faculty Profile

Michelle Macy, MD, MS

Mary Ann and J. Milburn Smith Research Professor for the Director of Child Health Research; Professor, Pediatrics (Emergency Medicine)

Dr. Macy is a health services researcher who has led behavioral health studies and program evaluations that utilized qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods, family centered co-design, mHealth, quality improvement, and implementation science.

Faculty Profile

Megan Roberts, PhD

Professor, Department of Medical Social Sciences (Determinants of Health) & School of Communication

Dr. Roberts is a clinician-scientist and translational researcher with both clinical and research experience working with infants and toddlers with autism and related disorders. She is a licensed speech-language pathologist with a background in communication sciences and disorders and special education with specific training in measurement, statistics, and research designs for intervention studies.

Faculty Profile

Jessica Schleider, PhD

Associate Professor, Medical Social Sciences (Intervention Science) (Implementation Science), Pediatrics, & Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Dr. Schleider is a mental health implementation scientist. The goal of Dr. Schleider’s research program is the rapid advancement, dissemination, and implementation of scalable, precise interventions that will dramatically reduce mental health problems in youth. She has launched and grown a research program and project portfolio focused on developing, testing, and implementing brief, digital, and single-session interventions (SSIs) for depression and related disorders.

Faculty Profile

Andrea Spencer, MD

Vice Chair for Research, Pritzker Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health; Associate Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)

Dr. Spencer is a child and adolescent psychiatrist, ADHD expert, and health services researcher whose work includes the use of mixed methods with the goal of improving access to care for youth with ADHD and other mental health conditions. Dr. Spencer is a practicing child psychiatrist and leader in child mental health research on our campus, thus perfectly positioned to facilitate physician-scientist training in this domain. Besides internationally recognized expertise in ADHD, she has expertise in community engagement, mixed methods research, and intervention development, key aspects of the newly emphasized applied translational research domains.

Faculty Profile

Darius Tandon, PhD

Director, Institute for Public Health and Medicine (IPHAM) - Center for Community Health; Chief of Intervention Science, Department of Medical Social Sciences; Professor, Medical Social Sciences (Intervention Science)

Dr. Tandon’s research focuses on the prevention of mental disorders and promotion of positive well-being among vulnerable populations. Much of his mental health research is with perinatal populations, including intervention studies aimed at the prevention of perinatal depression.

Faculty Profile

John Walkup, MD

Chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Child and Adolescent Psychiatry)

Dr. Walkup is a child psychiatrist and international leader in child psychiatric research, and he is currently President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP). He has extensive experience conducting clinical trials to study child mental health treatments, and he has been a leader in multiple large landmark NIMH-funded clinical trials for treatment of anxiety disorders, depression, suicide, bipolar disorder and tic disorders.

Faculty Profile