California Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine Expert Selection Committees

Dr. Ajilore is a Professor of Psychiatry within the Center for Depression and Resilience and Associate Head for Faculty Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the Director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program, Director of the Clinical Research Core in the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and Co-director of the Medical Scientist Training Program. Dr. Ajilore uses a variety of technologies to study structural and functional brain connectivity in major depressive disorder, viewing the brain as a network. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in biology and completed his MD/PhD degrees at Stanford University. Prior to joining UIC, Dr. Ajilore was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. Currently, as Director of the Connected Technologies (CoNeCT) Lab, he has numerous NIH funded grants focused on evaluating and treating depression in adults and geriatric patients using neuroimaging and computational science techniques to develop technology-based treatments. Dr. Ajilore is also a member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council for the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Anthony is a Professor and Vice Chair for Psychology, and the Director of the Office of Psychological Science and Practice in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is also Chief of Psychology for the Pediatric Mental Health institute at the Colorado Children's Hospital. His research focuses on how mental health disparities affect vulnerable populations and ways to improve the systems and practices that ultimately improve health outcomes. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in psychology from Columbia University. His work also focuses on ways to empower youth and families in decision-making, including programs to help providers and families build effective partnerships to enhance outcomes. More recently, his work focuses on best practices to support primary care standards, schools, and parents in enhancing children’s mental health. Dr. Anthony has served as a member of NIH and PCORI study sections and serves as an ad hoc grant reviewer for the National Science Foundation, Veterans Administration, and the Administration for Children, Youth and Families.

Dr. Baker is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He is also Director of the Laboratory for Functional Neuroimaging and Bioinformatics and Scientific Director of the McLean Institute for Technology in Psychiatry (ITP). Dr. Baker co-founded the ITP, a first-of-its-kind research and development center to develop tools and novel applications for consumer technology in psychiatric research and care delivery. He received his undergraduate degree in neuroscience at Brown University and his MD/PhD in neurobiology from the Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Baker uses bioinformatical approaches and functional imaging to understand what causes the behavioral differences in the brains of people with lifelong psychiatric conditions like schizophrenia. He and his lab use techniques such as latent construct modeling, machine learning, and dynamical systems analysis to develop translational approaches to help individuals.

Dr. Barksdale is a licensed clinical psychologist and a Program Director in the Division of Community Health and Population Science at the National Institute of Minority Health and Health and Disparities. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her master’s degree in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from George Washington University. She has used her expertise to evaluate and consult on children’s mental health projects focusing on depression and suicide, disparities in child-serving systems, and culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions for at-risk youth and their families. Dr. Barksdale’s current work and research interests are focused on identifying, disseminating, and supporting community-based and community-engaged, multilevel interventions to eliminate health disparities, with a particular focus on the role of structural and social determinants of health.

Dr. Gamble-George is an Associate Research Scientist in Public Health at the Yale University School of Public Health. She is an internationally acclaimed scientist with over a decade of experience across clinical, administrative, and research sectors of the healthcare field, discovering cures for the most common health diseases and disorders She has shared her research approaches to medicine with diverse audiences around the globe, including Nobel Prize Winners. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry and Biology with Honors in Mathematics from Xavier University of Louisiana and a Master of Health Administration from the University of South Florida College of Public Health. During her doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University, she co-founded SciX, LLC, a biotech company searching for methods to combat brain disorders and other health issues.

Dr. Fox is an Associate Professor of Healthcare Data Analytics in the School of Healthcare Leadership at the MGH Institute of Health Professionals. As a social psychologist, Dr. Fox is interested in the conceptualization, measurement, and consequences of mental illness stigma. She obtained a bachelor’s in psychology from College of the Holy Cross, and her Masters and PhD in social psychology from the University of Connecticut. Her current research uses advanced statistical models to examine the longitudinal relationships between stigma and mental health in young adults in order to determine the optimal timing for stigma interventions and increase rates of treatment seeking. She also serves as a statistician in the Women’s Health Sciences Division of the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD), where her research focuses on PTSD, trauma, and women’s health.

Dr. Hernandez Suarez is an Associate Professor in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Executive Associate Dean for Students at FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. She is also a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist. She earned her bachelor’s degree at Swarthmore College and completed her MD at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. She also holds a Master of Business Administration with specialization in Health Administration and Policy from the University of Miami. With skills in both hospital administration and academic research, her primary goal is to build bridges among hospitals, academia, and the community to create value for systems, patients, and learners. Dr. Hernandez Suarez is the Founding Chair of the Miami-Dade Health Action Network, a 2008 National Public Hospital Fellow "Future Leader of Public Hospitals" and a board member of the National Hispanic Medical Association.

Dr. Hudson holds a joint appointment between the Department of Psychiatry and as Faculty Scholar with the Institute for Public Health at the Washington University in St. Louis. He was also recently named the Director of the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity at Washington University. Dr. Hudson’s career is dedicated to the elimination of racial/ethnic inequities in health. His research agenda centers on how social determinants of health, particularly racism, affect multiple health outcomes. He earned his bachelor’s in psychology from Morehouse College. He then completed his Master of Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education and PhD in Health Behavior and Health Education from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. By studying the social epidemiology of depression among African Americans, his research has sought to determine how stress is socially patterned, and the coping strategies and resources that individuals develop and access to cope with stress.

Dr. Kerig is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Utah, where she directs the Risk to Resilience Laboratory. She earned her B.A. in Psychology from UC Irvine and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from UC Berkeley. Dr. Kerig is a developmental psychopathologist who studies the developmental processes that contribute to risk or resilience across the lifespan, particularly among youth exposed to trauma. Dr. Kerig also has an abiding interest in resilience and how it can be promoted through intervention. Her current research is focused on investigating the mechanisms accounting for the link between trauma and youth involvement in the justice system. Dr. Kerig also served on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Selection Committee for CIAPM.

Dr. Lim is an Assistant Professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She is currently leading the scientific tracks on Gender Equity and Mental Health at the Department of Population Health's Section for Health Equity. She is also a steering committee member of the Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander ‘OHANA Center of Excellence on mental health and substance use. Her research focuses on how multiple marginalization impacts mental and sexual health outcomes, drawing from intersectionality and syndemics frameworks to address gender-related health issues among hard-to-reach populations. Dr. Lim’s research interests also include reproductive and sexual health, mental health, and substance use. Her work uses mixed methods and community-engaged research approaches to advance health equity of individuals from mixed-marginalized populations. Dr. Lim obtained her PhD from Johns Hopkins University and an MPH from Columbia University.

Dr. Nahas is a Neuromodulation Researcher, Professor & Executive Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs at the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Minnesota. He received his Medical Degree from Saint Joseph University in Lebanon and then completed an internship in Psychiatry at L’Institut Paul Silvadon, a Lacanian day hospital, and Hôpital Charles Foix, both in Paris, France. He then completed a residency in Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. Before becoming faculty at the University of Minnesota, he was previously at the Medical University of South Carolina and at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, where he helped develop the department's clinical, educational, and research portfolio. Dr. Nahas’ scientific interests lie in translational research of mood dysregulation and depressive disorders, with unique expertise in functional neuroimaging and brain stimulation across various modalities.

Dr. Sanchez is a Research Investigator and Director of Diversity and Inclusiveness in Research for Baylor Scott & White Health’s Research Institute (BSWRI) in Dallas, Texas. She is a clinician-researcher, with over 15 years of experience as a bilingual clinical social worker. Her research interests are in integrated health care, investigating effective interventions aimed at reducing disparities and improving uptake in evidence-based mental health treatments in primary care through sociocultural and linguistically adapted models for the treatment of co-morbid mental and physical illness. Dr. Sanchez’s research agenda has focused on small scale interventions in primary care that reduce mental health disparities at the health delivery system level. She also represents BSWRI on the governing board of the Health Care Systems Research Network, a network of 20 non-profit healthcare delivery systems.

Dr. Saw is an Associate Professor of Clinical-Community Psychology at DePaul University. Her lab aims to promote health equity by conducting community-engaged research, studying structural and sociocultural influences on coping and health behaviors, and contribute to the development, evaluation, implementation, and dissemination of culturally responsive behavioral health interventions. Her research program is focused on reducing health and mental health disparities, particularly for Asian American immigrant and refugee communities. Dr. Saw completed her PhD in Clinical/Community Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed a predoctoral internship at McLean Hospital (an affiliate of Harvard Medical School) and a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Davis. Dr. Saw also served as a panelist at the Inaugural Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Mental Health Summit hosted by the Biden-Harris Administration in July 2023.

Dr. Shaban-Nejad is an Associate Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Director of Population and Precision Health at the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Center for Biomedical Informatics. Dr. Shaban-Nejad received his MSc and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Concordia University and Master of Public Health from UC Berkeley. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University. Currently, his primary research interest spans population health intelligence, epidemiologic surveillance, and big-data semantic analytics using tools and techniques from artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, and the semantic web. Dr. Shaban-Nejad is an associate editor of BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making and a guest editor of the Nature journal Digital Medicine, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, and the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. Dr. Shaban-Nejad previously served on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Selection Committee for CIAPM.

Dr. Shortreed is a Biostatistics Investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute and Affiliate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington. She uses statistics and machine learning methods to address health science problems, with a special emphasis on analyzing complex longitudinal data, such as electronic health records. She is leading a project to develop statistical methods for constructing personalized treatment strategies, using data captured from electronic health records. She obtained her PhD in statistics from the University of Washington. Prior to her current role, she spent two years in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, and another two years in the School of Computer Science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Dr. Shortreed collaborates with scientists in a broad range of research areas including alcohol use, cancer screening, and medication safety, and now works alongside researchers in mental and behavioral health.

Dr. Trivedi is a Professor of Psychiatry, Chief of the Division of Mood Disorders, and the Founding Director of the Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He holds the Betty Jo Hay Distinguished Chair in Mental Health and the Julie K. Herse Chair for Depression Research and Clinical Care. He earned his MS and MD in Baroda, India, completing his residencies in Psychiatry at University General Hospital, Baroda, India and Henry Ford Hospital. Certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, Dr. Trivedi focuses on developing and validating biosignatures of depression as well as the pharmacological, psychosocial, and nonpharmacological treatments for depression. He has been a principal investigator on numerous translational projects and clinical trials and has one of the longest running longitudinal research studies on depression.

Dr. Unützer is a board-certified psychiatrist and a Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington. He completed his medical degree at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and his medical residency at UCLA. His work focuses on innovative models of care that integrate mental health and general medical services, and on translating research from evidence-based mental health care into effective clinical and public health practice. He has more than 300 scholarly publications and is the recipient of numerous federal and foundation grants and awards for his research to improve the health and mental health of populations through patient-centered integrated mental health services. Dr. Unützer works with various national and international organizations to improve behavioral health care for diverse populations, most notably having served as Senior Scientific Advisor to the World Health Organization and as an advisor to the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.

Dr. Merrick has nearly 20 years of clinical, research, and leadership experience related to the etiology, course, and prevention of child abuse and neglect. She is currently the President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America, the nation's oldest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Previously, Dr. Merrick was a senior epidemiologist at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta, and served on a detail in the Office of the Commissioner at the Children's Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Child Abuse and Neglect, she served as the lead scientist for the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study at CDC for 8 years. Dr. Merrick successfully leverages her clinical and research experiences to communicate and disseminate the critical public health importance of preventing early adversity to key stakeholders with diverse priorities, backgrounds, and knowledge, including legislators, business and civic leaders, and members of the academic and medical communities.

Dr. Merrick received her BA in Psychology, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, and her master's and doctoral degrees in Clinical Psychology from the San Diego State University/University of California, San Diego, joint doctoral program in clinical psychology, where she served as a program coordinator for the San Diego site of the Longitudinal Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect Consortium. Dr. Merrick was a National Institutes of Health-funded postdoctoral fellow at the University of Miami Child Protection Team (CPT), where she was involved in a multi-site program of research that examined child maltreatment risk and protective factors in families evaluated by CPTs across the state of Florida.

Dr. Merrick is married and has two young children who keep her grounded, thankful, and hopeful for a brighter future for all children.

Dr. Abdi is a Clinical Social Worker and an expert in refugee trauma and resilience. She has worked for more than 20 years with refugee youth and families in the diaspora. Her areas of focus include building individual, family, and community resilience, improving systems of care responsiveness to the needs of refugee and immigrant communities, trauma systems therapy, and culturally responsive interventions. She is the co-developer of Community Connect, a multidisciplinary team-based intervention that worked with youth up to the age of 24 years of age who are at risk for violence of any type. She is also the Primary Investigator of the project, RAJO (Somali for hope) in Canada, funded by the Public Safety Agency in Canada to support positive outcomes for Somali-Canadian youth. This 5-year, multi-million-dollar project will be evaluated to test the impact of the intervention on youth outcomes.

Dr. Abdi previously served for over 12 years as Associate Director for Community Relations of the Refugee Trauma and Resilience Center at Boston Children's Hospital and Adjunct Professor of Boston College. She earned her PhD in Sociology and Social Work and a Master's degree in Social Work from Boston University and a second Master’s degree in Communications and Media Studies from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

She is the co-author of the recently published book, Mental Health Practice with Immigrant and Refugee Youth: A Socioecological Framework (APA, 2019).

Dr. Larissa Avilés-Santa is the Director of the Division of Clinical and Health Services Research at National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In her current role, she works with her great team on fostering research aimed at improving health outcomes of health disparities populationswithin the context of healthcare systems.

Prior to joining NIMHD, she worked at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute from 2006 to 2019 as the Project Director for the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos. In addition, she has participated in multiple NIH-wide committees and working groups addressing minority health, diabetes mellitus and its complications, and women's health. In 2015, she founded the NIH Hispanic Health Research Scientific Interest Group.

She has coauthored multiple publications on different Hispanic health topics and is a frequent guest lecturer at academic and other scientific venues within and outside of the NIH. In 2017, Dr. Avilés-Santa was the field coordinator of the post-hurricanes Irma and María recovery of the health and social services of the entire country of Puerto Rico. She worked in this capacity during the first six and a half months of recovery work coordinated by the HHS.

Dr. Avilés-Santa earned her medical degree from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, and completed a residency in internal medicine at the University Hospital in San Juan. She completed her fellowship in endocrinology at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center, where she joined the faculty of the Endocrine Division. She also earned a Master's degree at the UT School of Public Health.

In addition to his leadership roles at the Hospital for Sick Children, the SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, and Aga Khan University in Pakistan, Dr. Bhutta holds adjunct professorships at several universities, including Johns Hopkins University and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Dr. Bhutta is a Distinguished National Professor of the Government of Pakistan, Co-Chair of the Maternal and Child Health Oversight Committee of the World Health Organization Eastern Mediterranean Region, Chairman of the Coalition of Centres in Global Child Health, Past President of the International Pediatric Association, and a leading voice for health professionals supporting integrated maternal, newborn, and child health globally.

Dr. Bhutta leads large research groups in Toronto, Karachi, and Nairobi with a special interest in scaling up evidence-based, community setting interventions and implementation of RMNCAH&N interventions in humanitarian contexts. His work with community health workers has influenced maternal and newborn outreach programs for marginalized populations internationally, and his group’s work with the WHO and PMNCH is guiding global policy on essential interventions for women, children, and adolescents.

Dr. Bhutta obtained his MBBS from the University of Peshawar and his PhD from the Karolinska Institute. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. He was recently awarded the honour of Fellow of the Royal Society and honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Among many honors, in 2016, Dr. Bhutta received the World Academy of Sciences 2016 prize in Medical Sciences.

Dr. Keith Dobson is a professor of Clinical Psychology who leads University of Calgary’s Depression Research Laboratory. His research interests are in Clinical Psychology, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Depression and stigma. Dr. Dobson also examined psychological approaches and treatments for adults in primary care with Adverse Childhood Experiences. Further, he has written about developments in professional psychology and ethics, and has been actively involved in organized psychology in Canada, including a term as President of the Canadian Psychological Association. Dr. Dobson is also a Principal Investigator for the Opening Minds program of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, with a focus on stigma reduction related to mental disorders in the workplace. His work has yielded more than 300 peer-reviewed published articles, 80 chapters, 17 books, and presentations in many parts of the world. He is a Past-President of both the Academy of Cognitive Therapy and the International Association for Cognitive Psychotherapy. Among other awards, he has been given the Canadian Psychological Association's Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Profession of Psychology, the Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Science of Psychology, and the Award for Distinguished Contributions to the International Development of Psychology. Dr. Dobson received a PhD and Master's degree in Psychology from the University of Western Ontario, London and a Bachelor's degree in Psychology/Sociology from the University of Alberta, Edmonton.

Dr. Edwards has been committed to organized medicine for over 30 years, holding prominent positions in local, state, and national associations. She is past president of the National Medical Association, MedChi, Baltimore City Medical Society, and Monumental City Medical Society.

Putting patients first has been this physician's mission in her 10-year tenure on the board of CRISP, the regional health information center in Maryland.

Joining AMA in 1994, Dr. Edwards was appointed to the inaugural governing council of the Women Physicians Congress and has served on reference committees, task forces and chaired the AMA Council on Constitution and Bylaws.

After completing active duty in the Navy, Dr. Edwards founded an internal medicine practice in Baltimore, where she is the managing partner. She retired from the U.S. Navy Reserves at the rank of commander after 24 years of service. In addition to her busy private practice and AMA responsibilities, Dr. Edwards held senior management positions at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Health Advocacy Division and at the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America.

Elected to the Board of Trustees in 2016 and re-elected in 2020, Dr. Edwards has demonstrated hard work, leadership skills, and consensus building. She chaired the Task Force on Health Equity, resulting in the establishment of the AMA Center on Health Equity.

Dr. Edwards knows the balance needed in a physician's work life and the need to always be an advocate for patients in the delivery of quality care.

Dr. Gee directs the Clinical Affective Neuroscience and Development Laboratory at Yale University. She received her BA in Psychological and Brain Studies from Dartmouth College and her PhD in clinical psychology from UCLA. Prior to joining the faculty at Yale, Dr. Gee completed her clinical internship and postdoctoral training at Weill Cornell Medical College. Her research focuses on child and adolescent mental health, with primary goals to delineate typical and atypical trajectories of brain development, elucidate how early adversity influences sensitive periods of development, and translate knowledge of the developing brain to optimize interventions for children and adolescents with anxiety and stress-related disorders. Dr. Gee's research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, the Jacobs Foundation, and the American Psychological Association. She has received broad recognition for her work, including an NIH Director's Early Independence Award, the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association of Psychological Science, and the American Psychological Association's Early Career Award for Outstanding Contributions to Children, Youth, and Families.

Dr. Ham is a Clinical Psychologist, Associate Professor in Psychiatry, and Director of the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He receives federal and local grants to create and advance trauma-informed practices throughout multiple service systems including education, foster care, medical health, and criminal justice. His most recent funding from SAMHSA, the NYC DOE, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office are being used to create a trauma-informed adolescent substance abuse recovery and prevention program, a complex trauma treatment program inside the Mount Sinai Health System, crime victims treatment centers and trauma-informed community schools. He is a highly sought trainer and consultant on trauma-informed engagement and maintains an active clinical practice at Mount Sinai Beth Israel for children, families, and adults with a particular focus on using moment-to-moment relationship-based interventions that enhance attachment to overcome trauma and improve mental health. He received his PhD at the University of Massachusetts Boston and completed an internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and a fellowship at Children's Hospital Boston, both of which were also part of Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Hoyme serves as Senior Advisor in Genetics/Genomic Medicine at Sanford Health, the University of South Dakota Sanford School of Medicine, and the University of Arizona Health Sciences. He also serves as Medical Director of the Sanford Children's Genomic Medicine Consortium, a formal collaborative in pediatric precision medicine among ten major children's hospitals. Previously, he functioned as Department Chair of Pediatrics at the Sanford School of Medicine, President of Sanford Research and Chief Academic Officer for Sanford Health. He has held academic and leadership posts at the Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and the University of Vermont College of Medicine.

He earned his BA summa cum laude from Augustana University in Sioux Falls and his MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Pediatrics and Clinical Genetics fellowship training at the University of California, San Diego. He is board certified in Pediatrics, Clinical Genetics, and Clinical Cytogenetics.

He is the recipient of myriad awards in research, teaching, and mentorship, including the Western Society for Pediatric Research's Joseph W. St. Geme Jr. Education Award, the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Excellence Award, the American Academy of Pediatrics David W. Smith Education and Mentorship Award, and the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Study Group's Henry Rosett Award for Lifetime Contributions to FASD Research. His research focuses on Pediatric Genetics/Precision Medicine and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). Recently, he was first author of revised expert consensus diagnostic guidelines for FASD based on evaluation of over 10,000 children world-wide spanning more than 20 years.

Dr. Kerig received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley with a specialization in children and families and currently is a Professor in the Clinical Psychology program at the University of Utah where she directs the Risk to Resilience Laboratory. She also serves as the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Traumatic Stress. Dr. Kerig is an author of over 185 scholarly journal articles, books, chapters, and journal special issues devoted to understanding the developmental psychopathology of risk, recovery, and resilience among children, adolescents, and families coping with adversity in the context of a range of traumatic stressors, including childhood maltreatment, exposure to interparental conflict and violence, and intimate partner abuse. Her current program of research is focused on investigating the mechanisms accounting for the link between childhood trauma exposure and adolescent delinquency, with attention to potential underlying psychophysiological, cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal processes. She has a special interest in risk factors specific to traumatized girls in the justice system and the roles of intersectionality in regard to gender, race, class, and sexual minority status. Dr. Kerig also is a co-Director of the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice, a National Child Traumatic Stress Network center whose mission is to develop and disseminate trauma-informed assessment and intervention strategies to the systems that serve at-risk youth, while protecting staff from the potential adverse effects of secondary traumatic stress.

Dr. Lengua is a Child Clinical Psychologist studying the effects of stress and adversity on children, examining risk and protective factors that contribute to children's resilience or vulnerability. She examines children's neurobiological stress responses, temperament, coping, parenting, and family contexts as risk and protective factors that account for the effects of adversity on children's social, emotional, and academic well-being.

Dr. Lengua has been an investigator on several federally-funded projects examining the development of executive function (NICHD), the effects of low income, neighborhood, family, and parenting on neurobiological systems of self-regulation, and their effects on preschool and preadolescent children's social, emotional and academic development (NICHD, NIMH), neighborhood, family and peer effects on adolescent substance use (NIDA), and childhood risk factors for the emergence of adult mental health problems (NIDA). Dr. Lengua is the author of over 100 published papers. She serves on the steering committee for the CDC-funded Washington State Essentials for Childhood Initiative, collaborated with the Harvard Center for the Developing Child's Frontiers of Innovation, and has served on the Board of Trustees for Neighborhood House, a nonprofit anti-poverty organization.

Dr. Lloyd Michener serves as a Professor of Family Medicine and Community Health at Duke School of Medicine; Clinical Professor at Duke School of Nursing; and Adjunct Professor at UNC Gillings School of Public Health. He also serves as Chair of the Board of the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation and is a member of the National Academies of Medicine Workgroup on Assessing Meaningful Community Engagement.

He has served as Director of the "Practical Playbook", with the support of the deBeaumont Foundation, CDC, and HRSA, linking health care, public health, and communities across the country. In addition, he served as Chair of the Department of Community & Family Medicine at Duke for more than two decades and was the founding director of the Duke Center for Community Research.

Nationally, Dr. Michener has served as the founding Co-Chair of the Community Engagement Steering Committee for the Clinical and Translational Science Awards of the NIH, and as President of the Association for Prevention, Teaching and Research (APTR). He has been a member of the National Academies Institute of Medicine Committee on Integrating Primary Care and Public Health, the Board of Directors of the Association of Academic Medical Colleges, and the NIH Council for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Awards include Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha Omega Alpha, the Mead-Johnson Award from the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the Duncan Clark Award from APTR.

Dr. Michener is a graduate of Oberlin College, Harvard Medical School, and residency and fellowship in Family Medicine at Duke.

Dr. Nelson's research interests center on a variety of problems in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, including the development of social perception; developmental trajectories to autism; and the effects of early adversity on brain and behavioral development. He chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development and served on the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panels that wrote From Neurons to Neighborhoods, and New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research. In total, Dr. Nelson has published over 400 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, has edited eight books, and written three books. Among his many honors he has received the Leon Eisenberg award from Harvard Medical School, an honorary Doctorate from Bucharest University (Romania), and the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. He was a resident fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center (Italy) and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the British Academy.

Kenneth S. Ramos, MD, PhD, is an accomplished physician-scientist and transformational leader, with designations in the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine. He is recognized throughout the world for his scientific contributions in the areas of Genomics, Precision Medicine, and Toxicology.

With formal training in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, and Medicine, Dr. Ramos is helping to steer the changing landscape of medicine and healthcare. He leads several translational, clinical, and educational programs that integrate diverse approaches to elucidate genomic mechanisms of disease. Dr. Ramos has provided academic, executive, administrative, and scientific leadership in Genetics and Genomic Medicine and Toxicology at several institutions, and over the course of his career has influenced the career of numerous clinicians and scientists engaged in medical, veterinary, and pharmaceutical practice. He is committed to initiatives that advance modern technological applications to improve quality of healthcare and reduce disease burden and health-associated costs.

Dr. Ramos's research has paved the way for ground breaking research on LINE-1 retroelements and their role in chromatin remodeling, DNA damage and repair, and genetic reprogramming. His group was the first to establish a role for retinoblastoma proteins as master regulators of epigenetic silencing of LINE-1 and later characterized novel targets for regulation of cancer cells. He is currently examining the utility of circulating LINE-1 protein as prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers of lung cancer, which combined with imaging may improve precision for early cancer detection. This knowledge is being used to develop targeted therapies for lung cancer.

In addition to his work at the Center for Biomedical Informatics at UTHSC-ORNL, Dr. Shaban-Nejad is also an adjunct faculty at the Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Before joining the faculty at UTHSC, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow of the McGill Clinical and Health Informatics Group at McGill University. Dr. Shaban-Nejad received his PhD and MSc in Computer Science from Concordia University, Montreal and Master of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley. Additional training was received at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Shaban-Nejad's primary research interest is Population Health Intelligence, Precision Health and Medicine, Epidemiologic Surveillance, and Big-Data Semantic Analytics using tools and techniques from Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Representation, and Semantic Web. Dr. Shaban-Nejad is an associate editor of BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making and a guest editor of Nature - Digital Medicine, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, and IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics journals. His research has been supported by the Canada Institute for Health Research (CIHR), National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Gates Foundation, Microsoft Research, and Memphis Research Consortium (MRC). Dr. Shaban-Nejad is the Co-Chair of Health Intelligence workshops, which has been an integral part of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence annual conference since 2014.