We are a diverse team of interdisciplinary researchers and distinguished scholars across both Florida State University (FSU), Well Being Equity and Innovations, and Washington University in St. Louis. The team has received a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant, led by FSU’s College of Medicine, and we are eager to partner and collaborate with individuals to address common goals impacting our nation’s healthcare system.
We are committed to improving the quality of and access to health care for everyone. One of the most pressing challenges in healthcare today is the well-documented higher rate of physical and mental health issues in Black/African Americans. These disparities represent an opportunity to create proactive approaches for policies and practices that eliminate racial bias and improve health outcomes for everyone!
The goal of our project is to look at new ways to improve access and quality of health care, including behavioral health. We are especially focused on improving policies and practices aimed at eliminating health disparities. We believe in creating an innovative approach to reduce and eliminate racial health disparities and improve health outcomes.
Dr. Sylvie Naar is a Distinguished Endowed Professor at the Florida State University College of Medicine's Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine. She is also the Director of the Center for Translational Behavioral Science and the Director of the University's KL2 program. She is a clinical researcher with more than two decades of studies across the spectrum of intervention research from early trials translating basic behavioral science into new interventions, to randomized clinical trials, to comparative effectiveness, to implementation.
Dr. Naar has held a multitude of positions and honors throughout her impressive career and has been funded by the National Institutes of Health for a variety of projects related to adolescent health. She completed her Bachelors degree at the University of Michigan, her Masters and PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Colorado in Boulder CO, and completed a Residency and Fellowship in Pediatric Psychology at Wayne State University.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Adolescents, Emerging Adults, Health Management and Stress Interventions
Dr. Carrie Pettus is one of social work’s leading experts in criminal justice and decarceration. She joined The Florida State University as Associate Professor in summer 2018 to found and lead the Institute for Justice Research and Development -a premier trans-sector research center located in the college of social work focused on criminal justice system-wide innovations and preparing the social work profession for leadership in smart decarceration approaches. Pettus is co-founder and director of the Smart Decarceration Initiative and co-leads the Promote Smart Decarceration grand challenge network –one of the 12 grand challenges identified by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.
Pettus engages a growing base of policymakers, business leaders, funders, advocates, practitioners, formerly incarcerated individuals, and scholars in criminal justice innovations for debate and testing. Pettus focuses her applied research on smart decarceration of American prisons and jails through policy reform and direct practice intervention development. Pettus is particularly interested in the ways in which policies and practices can be transformed to reduce race, economic, and behavioral health disproportionality within the criminal justice system. She concentrates her direct practice intervention research on working with community partners to develop and research behavioral health interventions to enhance positive social support, respond to lifetime trauma experiences among justice-involved adults, treat substance use and mental health disorders, and generate overall well-being for those impacted by incarceration.
Pettus moved to Florida State University from Washington University in St. Louis, Brown school where she was Assistant Professor. There she founded and directed the Institute for Advancing Justice Research and Innovation and the Smart Decarceration Initiative –both center-based initiatives focused on criminal justice innovations. Prior to joining academia, Pettus was a social worker in varied mental health and correctional settings. Dr. Pettus completed her doctorate in social work from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She holds a Master of Social Work Administration and bachelor’s degrees in social work and psychology, all from the University of Kansas.
Meet Taylor L. Watson. She is a graduate of Florida A&M University (FAMU), where she received her Bachelor of Science in Journalism. She currently serves as the 1st Research Program Manager for the Transformative Health Justice Collaborative project. Previously Taylor was a multimedia journalist & has a full-fledged career background in Public Relations, Public Affairs & Communications. Her passions include public speaking, seeking out new adventures & investigations. Born a Tampa native, Taylor enjoys Traveling, going to the beach, and singing! Her long-term goal is to soon become criminal investigator and or an Associate Director in academia or within a private sector. However, in relation to her current position, she plans to continue managing the TR01 project to her best ability.
Heather A. Flynn, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, Professor and Chair at the Florida State University (FSU), College of Medicine in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine. She is the Director of the FSU Center for Behavioral Health Integration. Dr. Flynn’s research is focused on improved identification and treatment of behavioral health disorders in women, especially around the time of childbearing. Her studies are specifically aimed at developing and testing psychotherapeutic treatments for depression and co-occurring behavioral risk issues in medical and community settings. Dr. Flynn is also conducting projects focused on advancing the field both nationally and in the State of Florida through facilitating collaborative research networks to enhance synergy among experts in depression and related chronic illnesses. She is the Co-Chair of the Florida Maternal Mental Health Collaborative (www.flmomsmatter.org), and the Chair of the Women & Mood Disorders Task Group within the National Network of Depression Centers (www.nndc.org). Dr. Flynn is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT) and has been conducting training and supervision in MI with various settings and professionals for over 15 years. She is also a trainer and supervisor in other behavioral interventions such as Interpersonal Psychotherapy for Depression and serves on the Executive Board of the International Society for Interpersonal Psychotherapy.
Penny Ralston, PhD
A native of Indiana, Ralston received the B.S. degree from Ball State University and the M.Ed. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois. Her previous positions include professor, College of Human Sciences, Iowa State University and professor and head, Department of Consumer Studies, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The author of over 60 refereed articles, abstracts, book chapters and reviews, Ralston's major scholarly work has focused on program development, including the development of community-based programs and higher education programs.
RESEARCH INTERESTS: Community-based programs for older adults, health related outcomes, program development in higher education.
Sara Green is the Assistant Director at the Center for Translational Behavioral Science and the faculty lead of CTBScience Research Development Core, overseeing bioethical and regulatory aspects of behavioral and clinical trial research and management of large-scale clinical trial studies. Sara has received certification in Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Trial Research from the National Institutes of Health, and is pursuing a Graduate Certificate from Florida State University in Bioethics. Sara serves as a Co-Investigator on multiple NIH funded projects, including co-leading the SHARE Program's Community Engagement Core. Sara also contributes to multiple other federally funded projects, providing bioethical and regulatory expertise. Sara is also the Director of the FLEX Peer Support Program that provides peer support and resource navigation to adolescents and young adults in North Florida living with or at-risk for chronic disease.
Sara has served as the protocol co-chair of the Adolescent Trials Network "Ethical Issues in Engaging Lost to Follow Up Youth in HIV Care and Research" study (ATN164), and protocol co-chair of the Adolescent Trials Network "Innovations in Big Data and Implementation Science to End the Youth HIV Epidemic in Florida" (ATN165). Sara also served as a member of the Adolescent Trials Network's Bioethics working group. She is also an active community volunteer and advocate for issues surrounding Type 1 Diabetes. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6055-4641
Education: Bachelor of Science, Sociology and Public Administration; Florida State University
Master of Social Work, Advanced Clinical Practice; Saint Leo University
Research Interests: Bioethics, chronic disease, HIV, Type 1 Diabetes, Health equity, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and health outcomes across the life-span
Meardith Pooler Burgess, DrPH
Transformative Health Justice Collaborative Consultant
Dr. Meardith Pooler-Burgess is a public health practitioner, researcher, and equity advocate whose work focuses on reducing health disparities through community-engaged approaches. Holding a Doctor of Public Health in Behavioral Science and Health Education from Florida A&M University, a Master of Science in Public Health from Meharry Medical College, and training in Sociology and Urban Studies from Georgia State University, she brings both academic expertise and cultural awareness and humility to addressing complex health challenges.
Her work centers on reducing disparities through evidence-based and community-engaged approaches. Drawing from rigorous training in public health, CBPR, and health equity, Dr. Pooler-Burgess brings a unique perspective to promoting health equity for populations that are underserved. She applies community-engaged approaches to guide the development of effective health programs and interventions. Her expertise in facilitating community advisory boards and managing cross-sector partnerships ensures that research and programs remain grounded in community needs and perspectives.
Areas of Expertise: Health equity, community health, social determinants of health, preventive health services, intervention development, and community-engaged research.
Teisha Sanders is the Director of Equity and Cultural Advancement projects at Wellbeing and Equity Innovations (WEI). She began her career working within criminal court systems, conducting pretrial risk assessments in local jail settings, and providing case management services to individuals involved in the criminal justice system. She was fueled by this work to further build upon and advance evidence-driven solutions that more effectively contribute to the success of justice-involved communities. Teisha is skilled in leading research development, design, and data collection efforts, and has extensive experience leading and managing complex, multistate, multisite evidence-informed projects and collaborating with community partners and stakeholders. She draws on her background in social work to operationalize the value and importance of human relationships as she supports and empowers various stakeholders through project implementation toward desired outcomes.
Douglas Luke is a leading researcher in the areas of public health policy, systems science and tobacco control. Luke directs work focused primarily on the evaluation, dissemination and implementation of evidence-based public health policies.
Over the past decade, Luke has used systems science methods, especially social network analysis and agent-based modeling, to address important public health problems. He published the first review papers on network analysis in public health in 2007, and on systems science methods in public health in 2012. He has written books on multilevel modeling and network analysis. Under Luke's leadership, the Center for Public Health Systems Science has used network analysis to study diffusion of scientific innovations, to model the formation of organizational collaborations, and to study the relationship of mentoring to future scientific collaboration.
In addition to his appointment at the Brown School, Luke is a member of the Institute for Public Health, the director of evaluation for the Institute of Clinical and Translational Science and a founding member of the Washington University Network of Dissemination and Implementation Researchers. In addition, he served on an Institute of Medicine panel that produced a national report on the use of agent-based modeling for tobacco regulatory science.
Todd Combs is an Assistant Professor and the Associate Director of the Brown School’s Center for Public Health Systems Science. He oversees the Center’s research portfolio and focuses on expanding scientific and methodological capacities through identifying research opportunities, mentoring staff, and collaborating with the leadership team. His research interests include health and social policy, dissemination and implementation science, and systems science. Much of his research focuses on policies that affect the built environment to promote behavioral change.
He currently leads or works on several projects, including ASPiRE (Advancing Science & Practice in the Retail Environment), which uses agent-based modeling to test the potential impact of retail tobacco policies, and the evaluation of the Washington University Institute for Clinical & Translational Sciences, which focuses on the benefits of membership and collaboration in the large-scale research initiative. Todd also has years of graduate teaching experience in applied quantitative research methods for social science, social work, and public health.
Christopher Schatschneider, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, is an Associate Director of the Quantitative Methodology and Innovative Division of FCRR. Dr. Schatschneider is also an Associate Director of FCRR. Dr. Schatschneider has a strong interest in research design, measurement, and statistical methodology. He is interested in educational psychology, learning disabilities, quantitative methods, and research design, and reading and language comprehension.
IN MEMORY OF DR. NORMAN B. ANDERSON
Dr. Anderson was a beloved colleague, he served as a Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) for the Transformative Health Justice Collaborative and Professor of Social Work at Florida State University. Dr. Anderson created and directed the FSU Faculty Leadership Development Program, designed to offer leadership training to faculty across the university at different stages of their professional journeys. For his research, service, and leadership, he received significant awards from scientific societies and universities, and was the recipient of four honorary doctorate degrees. He will be greatly missed.