Biographies of Members
DR. HOWARD S. ADELMAN is Professor of Psychology and Co-Director (with Dr. Linda Taylor) of the School Mental Health Project and its federally-supported national Center for Mental Health in Schools at UCLA. In these roles, he pursues theory, research, practice, training, and policy related to educational, psychosocial, and mental health problems. His current efforts focus on systemic reform initiatives to enhance school and community efforts to address barriers to learning using and enhance healthy development through comprehensive, multifaceted, and integrated approaches. He began his professional career as a remedial classroom teacher in 1960 and received his Ph.D. in psychology from UCLA in 1966. Among his various involvements with schools and communities, he is on the design team for the Urban Learning Center model which is one of the New American Schools break-the-mold models for comprehensive school reform, serves as a board member of the Los Angeles Roundtable for Children, and a member of a Board of Education Standing Committee for the Los Angeles Unified School District.
DR. PETER L. BENSON is President of Search Institute and Adjunct Professor in the University of Minnesota's Department of Educational Policy Administration. He completed his M.A. in Psychology of Religion at Yale University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Experimental Social Psychology from the University of Denver. At the Search Institute, Dr. Benson has worked on projects focusing on young delinquents, employee chemical use, gangs, adolescent mental health, and numerous other topics related to social development, family, attitudes and behavior. His professional activities include membership on the Board of Directors of the Center for Victims of Torture, the Vesper Society (Oakland), and the Youth and Family Institute. He is also a member of the Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota Ethics and Policy Committee, New Work Force (Minneapolis) Advisory Committee, and the Children First Executive Committee. Dr. Benson has authored or co-authored approximately 100 books, articles, and reports and has delivered over 120 presentations and addresses around the country.
DR. GILBERT J. BOTVIN is currently a Professor in the Department of Public Health, the Department of Psychiatry, and the Program of Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research at Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Botvin, who received his M.A., M.Phil., and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, is also Director of Cornell's Institute for Prevention Research and is an Attending Psychologist at The New York Hospital- Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Botvin has authored or co-authored over 150 scientific papers and book chapters and developed the drug-abuse prevention program entitled Life Skills Training. He has served as an advisor or consultant to numerous government agencies including the World Health Organization, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the U. S. Department of Education, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the National Cancer Institute, the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
DR. JACQUELINE F. BROWN is Coordinator of Academic Support Services for the Office of the Superintendent of the Howard County, Maryland Public School Systems. As such, she serves on the Superintendent's Executive Cabinet and on the school system's Strategic Leadership Council. Dr. Brown created the MASSI (Motivation, Assessment, Structure, Support and Instruction) 5-part instructional planning process for designing, implementing and evaluating classroom instructional strategies aimed at improving the academic achievement of low performing students. Dr. Brown was formerly the Coordinator of Human Relations for The Howard County Public School System, Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology at Bowie State University, and Founding Director of the Violence Prevention Education Project at the University. Dr. Brown, who received her Ed.M. from Bowie State College and her Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Maryland is a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor, a Nationally Certified Counselor, and a Maryland Certified Professional Counselor.
DR. PHYLLIS L. ELLICKSON currently holds the positions of Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND; Chair of RAND Health Research Council; Director of the Center for Research on Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health; and Faculty Member of the RWJ Clinical Scholars Program at UCLA School of Medicine/RAND. Dr. Ellickson, who received her Ph.D. in Political Science, focuses her research efforts in the areas of adolescent problem behavior and young adult functioning; determinants of successful innovations; and knowledge acquisition, diffusion, and use. She currently sits on the Educational Advisory Board of The BEST Foundation and the Technical Advisory Committee of the National Evaluation of CSAP's Coalition of Coalitions Program, and was formerly on the Advisory Group on Adolescent Drug Use for the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Technical Advisory Committee of the National Evaluation of CSAP's Community Partnership Demonstration Program.
MR. JOHN R. "SKIP" FORSYTH is Director of the Florida Department of Education's Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. Prior to this appointment he was the Training Coordinator for the Program where he provided consultation, training, and technical assistance to local education agencies. Before joining the Florida Department of Education, Mr. Forsyth, an M.S., Psychology graduate of Central Missouri State University, was the Agency Director of the Drug Education and Prevention Center. Mr. Forsyth is a Florida Certified Addictions Prevention Professional and has provided consultation and training services to the U.S. Department of Education, the Alabama School for Alcohol and Drug Studies, the University of North Florida, and the U.S. Office of Substance Abuse Prevention. Mr. Forsyth was on the National Conference Planning Committee for the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Program, the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities National Steering Committee, the Florida Commission on Community Service, and the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health State Planning Council.
DR. LINN GOLDBERG is currently Professor of Medicine and Head of the Division of Health Promotion & Sports Medicine at Oregon Health Sciences University. He also serves on the Speaker's (Oregon House of Representatives) Council on Youth Abuse of Drugs and Alcohol and is the Principal Investigator of the ATLAS (Adolescents Training and Learning to Avoid Steroids) intervention sponsored by NIDA. Dr. Goldberg, who earned his M.D. from George Washington University School of Medicine, has worked in the area of drug abuse prevention for adolescents with a focus on prevention of substance abuse among adolescent athletes for the past 11 years. Dr. Goldberg has been a special consultant to the U.S. Inspector General in the Department of Health and Human Services and has been featured in workshops on drug prevention designed for adolescents. He is a member of the Clinical Research Center Committee at Oregon Health Sciences University and the Occupations and Environmental Medicine Subcommittee of the University Medical Associates, Inc.
DR. DENISE GOTTFREDSON, Professor at the University of Maryland, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, is also Vice President of Gottfredson Associates, Inc. Dr. Gottfredson, who earned her Ph.D. in Social Relations from The Johns Hopkins University, has authored numerous publications which focus primarily on school-based delinquency prevention and the causes and prevention of delinquency and drug use. Dr. Gottfredson is involved in the integration of research and practice in social service and criminal justice agencies to reduce adolescent delinquency and drug use. She has served as advisor and consultant to the Maryland State Department of Education, Maryland Governor's Office of Crime Control and Crime Prevention, Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, and several federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Education. Dr. Gottfredson's current projects include a book on Schooling and Delinquency, and a National Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools.
DR. J. DAVID HAWKINS, Director of the Social Development Research Group and Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington, earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northwestern University. He is co-founder of Developmental Research and Programs. Dr. Hawkins' areas of specialization encompass prevention research, crime and delinquency, social problems and social policy, adolescent development, substance abuse, and research methods. He is a member of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Study Group on Very Young Offenders and National Institutes' of Health Community Prevention and Control Study Section. He is the co-author of Communities That Care: Action for Drug Abuse Prevention, Preparing for the Drug-Free Years, Parents Who Care, Delinquency and Crime: Current Theories, and A Sourcebook: Serious, Violent, and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. He is the 1996 recipient of the Seventh Annual Award of Excellence for Outstanding Contribution to the Field of Prevention from the National Prevention Network; and the 1998 recipient of the Washington Council on Crime and Delinquency's Edith A. Lobe Award for Citizen Volunteerism.
DR. HOPE M. HILL is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology and the Director of the Violence Prevention Project at Howard University. Dr. Hill, who received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University, studies the impact of violence on young children. Recently, she conducted research in the Republic of South Africa on coping with violence among youth. She has worked with the Child and Youth Services Commission on Mental Health in Washington, D.C., and was formerly the Chief Psychologist at the Graham Windham Mental Health Clinic and at the Northside Child Development Center in New York. She was appointed to serve as a member of the Mayor's Task Force on School Violence, the National Academy of Sciences' Special Committee of the Board on Children, Youth and Families, and on the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Injury Control and Prevention. Dr. Hill's current research projects are entitled Safe Start and Lessons from Resilient Children and Children as Witnesses to Domestic Violence.
DR. D.J. IDA is the Director of Child/Adolescent Services at the Asian Pacific Development Center in Denver, Colorado. She received her M.A. in Guidance and Counseling and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has presented extensively on issues related to cultural competency and working with high risk Asian youth and their families. Dr. Ida served on The Governor's Task Force for the Recodification of the Colorado Children's Code, the National Women's Resource Center-Female Adolescent Technical Expert's Group for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; and was invited to attend the White House Conference on Hate Crimes. She also served on the National Experts Panel which developed A Guide to Preventing School Violence: Early Warning Signs and What to Do About Them which was co-sponsored the National Association of School Psychologists and the Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice of the American Institutes for Research, a project supported by the U.S. Department of Education and the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention.
MS. MARY JO McGRATH, J.D. is the Founder of McGrath Systems, Inc., a training and human development company that specializes in providing workshops and video training systems based on legal principles to schools, groups, and private organizations. Ms. McGrath earned her J.D. from Loyola School of Law and has been a practicing attorney for 21 years, specializing in education and personnel law. She is an expert on sexual harassment in schools, teacher tenure laws, teacher termination litigation, and employee supervision, evaluation, and discipline. She is the designer of the copyrighted S.U.C.C.E.E.D. SYSTEM: Legally Fit and Principled Management, a training program for executives, and the creator of a six part sexual harassment video training system entitled Sexual Harassment: Minimizing the Risk. Ms. McGrath has acted at an expert consultant to California Governor Pete Wilson on the reformation of teacher tenure laws, and has legally represented numerous county education offices and school districts nationally and throughout British Columbia.
DR. JANICE L. WILLIAMS-PETERSON, the Executive Director of the Governor's Office of Substance Abuse Policy in North Carolina, was previously the Co-Founder and Vice President at Family Life Institute of Counseling, Education, and Research, Inc. in Florida. Dr. Peterson, who earned her M.A. in Minority Mental Health from Washington University and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Pennsylvania State University, has extensive consultation, seminar/workshop, and teaching experience in the following areas: psychological assessment and personality development; substance, sexual and physical abuse issues; stress management and related anxiety disorders; depression and suicidal behavior; adolescent development and juvenile delinquency; staff development, training, and skills building; program evaluation and curriculum development; marriage and family issues; and multicultural competence in the workplace. She is a current member of the Governor's Commission on Juvenile Crime and Violence, the National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors, and the Governor's Crime Commission.
DR. RICHARD L. SPOTH is the Project Director for Prevention Programming and Research at the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research, and Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology, both at Iowa State University. Dr. Spoth is a licensed psychologist whose current prevention programming and research interests include: efficacy of universal family- and youth-focused preventive interventions; linking family-focused interventions with school-and community-based interventions; modeling family-focused preventive intervention processes; consumer research on factors influencing engagement in preventive interventions; prevention service needs assessments and resource allocation; effective dissemination of family- focused preventive interventions through practitioner-researcher collaborations; and family- focused prevention in minority populations. He acts as Psychology Consultant to the VA Medical Center and is an Ad hoc Reviewer of journal articles and grant proposals for foundation, state, and federal agencies.
MR. FRANKLIN E. ZIMRING, J.D., who earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago, is William G. Simon Professor of Law and Director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute, School of Law, University of California at Berkeley. Previously, he was Professor and Director of the Center for Studies in Criminal Justice at the University of Chicago. Mr. Zimring is an Affiliated Expert for the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University, and a member of the Panel on NIH Research on Anti-Social, Aggressive, and Violence-Related Behaviors and their Consequences. He is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Program on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice; the U.S. Department of Transportation's Expert Panel on the Crash Risk of Alcohol-Involved Driving; the National Council on Crime and Delinquency's Advisory Committee for the Violent and Serious Juvenile Offender Project; and the Illinois Youth Services Association's Board of Directors. Mr. Zimring is the 1995 recipient of the Donald Cressey Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
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